Psychotomy

Kiir and DK went to visit her family. Left Saturday morning. K and I have 10 days to ourselves.

Of course, the last two times they went, I was supposed to clean. The first time I did about 60-90 minutes of cleaning a night, then kindof got swept into Bioshock … Kiir was unimpressed with my complete lack of cleaning.

The second time we had started playing EQ2 again. And I spent the WHOLE time playing EQ2. I got like 5 levels or something. But I did ZERO cleaning. Oops. Kiir was less than unimpressed. She was downright pissed. Because I’d said I’d clean, and then I didn’t.

So the house has been kindof sitting in it’s own filth for months. And since DK started in with the blueberries, raspberries, blackberries … sure, he eats other things, but they don’t stain NEAR as bad. And those stains have been ground into the carpet for months. Because he kindof drops berries here and there, then someone steps on them, and then it just keeps setting. And the living room has been full of toys. And we still can’t use the basement because it’s still full of crappagio.

SO! The Great Purge ™ of 2008

(more…)

Posted in: DK, general, house by attriel /
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So, things have been busy lately, haven’t managed to post. (and you think this site is bad, the only update in like two months on my crypto blog was a post after vacation saying “damn, busy! will post soon” … apparently I LIE LIKE A RUG)

Anyway, posting some now. So, for those of you who have been bitching: SCREW YOU! Some of us work for a living, dammit!

Posted in: general by attriel /
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Left for vacation last friday. Left the house at 10:30, arrived in NC at 11:30. AM and PM respectively …

To be fair, however, we left at 10:30, went to gymboree, picked up a few things at target, did lunch, hit the grocery for my happy pills so they wouldn’t run out thursday evening. Got “on the road” around 1:30. Stopped at kiir’s grandmother ~4:30? her aunt was there visiting on HER way to vacation too! then another aunt stopped by with her two kids, 5 and 8?, and we ended up just staying for dinner rather than leaving and then stopping in 20 miles :o Boy likes to eat at 6. 6:30 at the outside, if you give him a snack to keep the starvation at bay. Left there around 7:30 again, so I was really only driving 7 hours. But since I got up at 8:30, it was a long damned day :o

Kiir’s parents arrived saturday, we hit the pool. Went to New Bern, the Birthplace of Pepsi Cola!, but the town was basically closed when we went on Sunday. Monday was more pool and playing at the timeshare b/c mom had to work most of the day. Tuesday we (kiir, dk, me, and dad) went to the beach (mom had to work all day (this is a repeating theme)). DK LOOOVED the sand and the surf and the ocean and everything. Unless you took away his plastic shovel. Then the universe sucked and was trying to eat his favourite toy and and and ooh shovel! yay. :) (I had to run into the water a few times when he dropped it whilst playing in the tide, oi)

Tuesday night mom and dad watched DK so Kiir and I could go out for dinner , just the two of us. I was afraid all the good restaurants were an hour away at the beach area, but Kiir had found a few in New Bern that sounded decent. We actually went to a japanese steakhouse, was pretty good.Wednesday we did the pool again, mom played with DK for a bit between calls. Thursday they left and we went to the pool and started packing things up

Friday, checkout was at 10AM. I had called and gotten permission to leave at noon instead, since we didn’t really think the 15mo old was going to be conducive to packign quickly, nor amenable to getting up early enough to be out and on the road at 10 :o Kiir took him to the pool around 10ish, and I spent until 11:30-11:45 packing the car. They finally came back to see why I hadn’t come over to pick them up after finishing. On the road around noon, yay. Stopped in like 20 minutes for lunch at IHOP, picked up blueberries for the boy wonder, and off we went!

Stopped at Kiir’s grandmothers again and had dinner with them. Dinner was nice, but the important part of this stop was giving desmond some time OUT of his carseat to run around. Because he woke up when I stopped for gas an hour outside of Richmond. And he was PISSED. Because he was DONE with his car seat :o

Got home last night ~10ish, yay.

Posted in: general, trips by attriel /
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So, DK is upstairs trying to fall asleep. Kiir was up all night reading, so she’ll likely fall asleep with him, although she did have a nap after I got home (and probably during his afternoon nap, but I don’t know for sure)

I’m going through my feeds (busy lately ; I’ve managed to keep up with the small ones, but the big ones? the ones that get 50+ a day? and tend to have things I actually click through to more often? yeah, a little behind on those … only ~500 right now.) anyway, looking at them, and deciding I’m not sure I really feel like reading them right now, I remember that my email has the SANS NewsBites, twice weekly digests with various security bits.

I have today’s. And the one from Tuesday.
And last week’s.
And the previous week’s. and back probably two months since I last managed to get the time to clear them.

I remember setting up the feed from SANS last year into google reader. Except instead of an item for each bit, there’s an item for each category. And the title is the cat title, and the body? the cat title. not even a headline listing :/

Now I’m contemplating the feasibility of setting somethign up to receive the messages, auto parse, and then produce an rss feed that i can then subscribe to (wow, that doesn’t sound complicated, does it?) since if it’s in my feeder I think I’d actually keep up on it. Because the feeder is somewhat easier to “glance at”

Ya, I start off commenting on how I don’t have time to read the stuff I’m already subscribed to, then move on to thinking about a way to make more to read … go me :)

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I don’t have a lot to say right now. I’m a little behind on my crypto posts, so I should probably head there next.

DK didn’t want to go to bed at 9, so he came downstairs and fussed about for ~30 miinutes, then fell asleep on my legs for two hours. pins and needles pins and needles!!

Started playing CoH again last week, when he goes to bed early. Tonight we were doing Lost Odyssey again. Spent that two hours wandering around a cave and not finding the danged exit to lead to the next area. Once he went up, I looked at a walkthrough. It’s not the right cave, there IS NO next area from here. And apparently I missed the trigger, before, that would put something in here to find. But I’m thinking of running around for nother couple hours tomorrow, because it’s a great levelling room :)

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Yeah not what you think

DK would’t go down for his nap this afternoon, so we went out to Best Buy to get the wireless usb dongle for kiir’s computer, since after moving it upstairs we came to the sudden realization that this left it a smidge short on network connection and thus limited her online access :o

First off, while there, he picked up lego indy for hte wii. I’d been planning to get it, and had been thinking about the wii version since the X is upstairs. But the controls sounded like i actually had to motion the whip and such and eff that, no way. i’m looking for something i can play sitting down with a baby across my lap, people! then he picked up the X and DS versions to take with him. I guess in case I wasn’t sure yet. I took those away too, and he grabbed two more copies of the X …

Fine I can take a hint, we’ll buy Lego Indy today :o

On the way home he fell asleep (OK, so we took a somewhat circuitous route, to make sure). So I’m sitting in the car with him. But after 2 hours of DS Crosswords sunday, I decided I wanted something different. So Kiir brought out my laptop for me :)

Posted in: DK, general by attriel /
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So, we were moving Kiir’s computer upstairs to hook it up to the TV, since it takes a VGA input an all that jazz.

I unhooked the system and pulled it out, then I needed to get the cables and assorted miscellany. The power cable. The video cable (which didn’t matter, since it was DVI and the tv has VGA, oops), and the two cables for the wireless keyboard and mouse. Two, because the mouse that came with the keyboard didn’t work very well, so there’s a separate wireless mouse hookup now. I have the same kind of config, actually.

Doing all that, the cables were wound and wrapped with the network devices. We have the modem, a wired hub, and two wireless ones. WHEEE. Got it untangled and took stuff up. Come back down to go online and … and …

And my computer can’t talk to the internet anymore, wtf? Poking, prodding, rebooted. Nothing. Can’t talk to anything. Fine, I’ll go try her other computer, see if its still up. Yes. OK, check the server, yes. Great, so the internet is working, the server is working, and the wireless is working. So why can’t my computer, which is plugged in to the wireless hub via cable, talk to the internet???

After digging at it a little while longer, I came to the conclusion that it’s not getting the DHCP from the server. I’m kindof wondering if tugging cables free and such, this cable didn’t get wrapped somewhere and break a wire. Not all of them, because it still knows when it’s unplugged vs not working (go figure), but an important one since it can’t seem to get the PROPER signals through :/

So I’m on my laptop right now. Running AV and bot scans on the desktop, since it’s also suddenly piss slow. Really wish I knew WTF was going on with it. Bleah.

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So, there’s been a few things that I haven’t posted about. Either too small for their own post, or I forgot when it was timely and amusing and now it’s just old, or whatever …

***

At Kiir’s brother’s graduation, the night we drove up we went out to japanese. First off — DK does NOT appear to like the noise and general ruckus of the hibachi time. While they were cooking the food, instead of participating in “catch the block of whatever out of the air like a good seal, youk youk” i took DK on a walk around the restaurant. twice. It was quite the tedious :o

Also that night, her brother insisted on Saki Bombs. Which, look like a variation on a boiler maker. I’m told it’s like a japanese irish car bomb (wow, this won’t get me weird google hits at ALL). You drop a shot of Saki into a glass of Sapporo (which might just be a japanese brand rather than type, i think). Except you’re supposed to balance the shot on a pair of crossed chopsticks, and then bang the table to jar it loose. Or something. DK stole my chopsticks, and the hard stone table was set into the floor, so it wasn’t working for anyone else that way they had to manually move the chopsticks :o Anyway, then you chug it. My and the guy sitting next to me were “amateurs” b/c we neither of us knew wtf a Saki Bomb was. So we got full glasses of beer with our shot. The “hardcore pros” (brother in law) got barely enough beer to submerge the shotglass :o

***

A few weeks ago, after the hospital trip, it came out that DK likes Black Olives. My mom got a slice of olive and sausage pizza for dinner ,and gave him an olive. And when she went to give him another one a little bit later, she almost lost a finger because she held on too long :o he’s had 3 cans of olives in the last 2 weeks. Maybe more.

***

Kiir and I are trying out D&D4e with the Keep on the Shadowfell, the prebuilt adventure that release with skimmed rules for people to try out the new ruleset before full release. (PVP and Penny Arcade gave it a shot and are podcasting the 8-hr session in chunks at WotC ; Kiir — don’t listen to it until I tell you we’ve gotten ahead of it !!!) Of course, we’re doing it on a forum, and it’s built for 5 PCs and a GM. I’m GM and 2, she’s the other 3 PCs … yeah, there might be a few flaws in the plan.

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This weekend we worked on cleaning the house.

Living Room: Picked up ALL of DK’s toys and put them in the ‘storage’ bins we have on teh shelves. I think we need to go further and look through the bins, decide which toys to keep out and box up the rest for storage or donation or something. Because he has 6 or 7 1′ cubes filled with toys. And I’m not saying we should keep the three he plays with most or anything. Maybe we just need to rotate them out more often, I dunno. But some of them have been in the cabinets for months, which seems like either a waste or a shame. Vacuumed the carpet and mopped the hardwood, too, during naptime

Laundry: Did a load of diaper-related things. A day’s worth of diapers and then the rest of the load full of diapers wipes and burp cloths that were scattered around the floor gathering dust and food and such. Decided to just wash them and thus get them back in the circulation properly. Also did a load of towels, one of sheets, one of DK’s clothes, 4 of ours, and have another load of sheets to do when I strip the guest bed. Ran out of time, so leaving that for next week, since it’s just one load now. Plus the two sets of new sheets we have, but since one of those goes to DK’s new full bed, which we haven’t bought yet, I figure I’ve got time. And I don’t think we need our new flannel sheetset JUST yet.

K’s Room: Broke down the daybed in the room. I’ve tried to leave K’s room alone, so it wasn’t being taken over by the baby too, but …. First off, K spends most of his time in the living room, with the gate closed. So he doesn’t even get out to eat and drink whenever he chooses like he used to. Then upstairs there’s a gate on his door, to keep DK out of the room, since I didn’t sanitize it for a baby. I’m positive K can go over the gate if he chose. At least into the room. Not sure about out, since there’s only a couple feet between the door and the opposing wall, he might not be comfortable with out, but in he CAN do. He simply doesn’t. So he hasn’t used his room much in a year and a half, and not at all for 4-6 months now. So I suppose starting to change it over isn’t that big a problem to him, but it feels wrong to me :/

DK’s Room: Went through the dresser and boxed up all the heavier winterweight clothes. Also packed away most of his jackets. The number of times he’s going to need a sweat shirt or a wool coat in summer in MD … limited :o

Our Room: Cleaned out all the junk under the bed. Put away the two baskets of laundry from a couple weeks ago (Just in time to reuse the baskets for new laundry!) Cleared off the tops of the bookshelves and put up Kiir’s new TV (See other post). Took the bed off the rails so the boxspring sits directly on the floor. That part’s so DK can get off easier. Now he can actually almost look over the edge of the bed from a standign position, so when he slides off it’s not near as far a drop. Especially important when he’s not paying attention and tries to go off face first instead of feet.

Now I have two beds frames and a couple large boxes of clothes to take to the attic. Plus whatever’s still in the basement. Plus whatever we pick out next week :o

Posted in: general, house by attriel /
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So, I had something else I was going to post about, but I’ve spent two days now and I can only remember it in the middle of my trainride or a meeting or somewhere equally inaccessible.

Instead, I’m going to kvetch about the fact that Kiir has stolen the XBox 360!!!

For her birthday, she got her mom to agree to buy a tv for the bedroom. So she could play games or watch a movie or SOMETHING after DK falls asleep. Since she’s stll nursing him at night, she has to go up with him. And since he still wakes up if he’s left alone in the bed, she has to stay with him. And after the first year or so, it started getting a touch TEDIOUS. Don’t get me wrong, she likes reading her romance novels. And she boots up one or the other of the laptops and pokes around online. But the laptops aren’t great for games, and even though she likes to read it’s nice to do something different occasionally.

This weekend we picked up a tv at best buy yesterday we set it up. And when they went up last night, I took DK up, she took the X. Now it lives in the bedroom. Which may make it quite tedious when he wakes up and wants me to play games for an hour or two before we go to bed again. And weekend mornings when he frequently gets up noticeably before her and we play games.

Because, frankly? Mario Kart he swipes my wheel and that gets boring to watch me sit in the middle of the course. Even if he is learning how to control the Karts. Wii Sports? It’s gotten old and tired. I’m at the point now where I either get trounced, and down a slot of difficulty, or I kick ass, and go up the same slot. And I can only play so many frames of Bowling. Mario Party? Group, and DK don’t count yet. Kabookii? Same. Boom Blox — well, it’s still new and playable at least. But there’s still the fundamental problem that Wii games don’t lend themselves to sitting peacefully on the floor whilst a toddler naps across you.

Blue Dragon. Lost Odyssey. Assassin’s Creed. Mass Effect. These all lent themselves to it nicely. Even Lego Star Wars worked.

I may need to check Craigs or Ebay for used X’s :o

Posted in: games, general by attriel /
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