Psychotomy

Quicken Spare Change Challenge

Yeah, the questions are rather poorly formed. “do you brew your own coffee or go to specialty shops?” uh, none? “do you buy top shelf or bottom shelf alchohol?” uh, top shelf, but I’ve had the same 3 bottles of vodka for 5 years, so yeah.

Bonus feature, it seems to minimize at 1$ a week “waste” … Which means taht the 368 is vastly over-reported. The only one I zero’d was education. And since I’m not IN school, I would think that would zero well. But transportation? “Do you have excess weight?” no? not more than a pound or so in empty soda cans and such. “Are you tires well pressurized” always seem to be “do you take public transportaiton?” yes … where was the waste listing??? :o

But, still, kindof interesting. The big losses are food (because we don’t comparison shop ; there’s a limit to the comparison shopping benefit for fresh fruit at 4$/ga of gas ; we buy them at the grocery by the house b/c it’s close) and energy (which wasn’t listed for some reason as a breakout) since we leave the computers on. I mean, her two, my desktop and the server. that’s gotta burn a fair amount of power :o And the X is on probably 8 hours a day, but not always in use.

The questions are enlightening, to some, in terms of areas to look at. The results are suspect, however

Posted in: general, Surveying by attriel /
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So, this morning Kiir wasn’t feeling well (exhausted, tired, etc), so I had a brilliant plan to let her have a day of rest — I called my parents and took DK down to their place for the day ;)

So, after gathering together basically all of his diapers that I could find (because half a dozen that I found easily just didn’t seem like nearly enough), I drove him down and dropped him off before walking over to the Metro station by their house and mass transiting my way to work a smidgin on the late side.

But when I took him in I did some of those things that I had told myself I wouldn’t do. Those things that parents always do and everyone always silently (and usually inwardly) rolls their eyes at? Yeah, those. I had two of those reusable grocery bags filled with stuff. In my defense, one was almost completely full of diapers, the other was diapers and spare clothes for the boy.

I took over a few of the videos he enjoys. Word World and Signing Time. Even though (a) my parents almost never use their DVD player; (b) I use the vids largely to distract him when I’m making dinner or something where I just don’t need him offering his assistance; (c) Yeah, like my parents were gonna waste time letting him watch tv :o But I took them over, “just in case”.

Before I left, I was running through what was in the bags. And I made a comment about how they had bathing suits if they decided to set up his pool. Then I realized. This was THE thing. That part of a movie where the worried parents are going through the whole huge list of every little thing. All I needed to do now was to start saying things like “And remember, he likes his blue blanky when he takes a nap, unless he’s in the car, then he wants the yellow blanky.” or something equally inane and stupid. Because you know what? THEY HAD KID(S)! They can probably muddle through a day, and he can probabl survive without everything being JUST the way he likes it! (not that he has that many particular things) I tried to gracefully cover up by saying “and you had a kid, so you can probably figure anything else out,” Except I mumbled, so I had to repeat it.

At which point they made sarcastic comments about how it had been a few years, and they hoped none of the parts had moved. the feet were still on the bottom of the legs, right? *sigh* I really never wanted to be that guy :/

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So,

Yesterday morning the train ended up stopped in the middle of nowhere in particular for half an hour, then crawled around for a bit backwards then forwards.

Turns out, from what the conductor said, someone “lost a body. They want us to stop while they look for it”

Turns out, after I got to work and looked online and talked to kiir, They Found a Body … go figure. That really WAS what the man said.

Posted in: general by attriel /
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So

In a few weeks we’re going to India to visit family. My family, specifically. And DK, in particular. Because if we (somehow) left DK with someone here, we’re not sure my dads siblings would let us in their front doors. “attriel? Who? never heard of you!”

I’ve been 4 times in my life. Once when I was a little older than DK will be. Once when I was 8 and again at 12? and then after kiir and I got married, we went to “show off the new bride” to the famly. My dad made a point of the fact that that trip was the last one he was obligated to obligate us to. Now it’s my family, and it’s up to me to go.

Then he decided he wanted to take DK :o Which is fine, because tickets to India are like 1500 or 2000 apiece, with the various sundries associated. And with 3 seats, thats a lot of scratch. while I love my dad’s family, there are honestly better things I could do with 6k. But my dad is paying, so we’re only having to come up with the money for the various bits we need for the trip (diapers for DK, some fixed wardrobes, etc), things we’ll need to pay for associated with the trip (over two weeks in kennel for K, at 30$ a night, plus another 10-20$ or so if we want him to get any exercise), and then money we need IN India (souveniers, money for my “sisters” (I’m supposed to protect them, but because I’m not there, I’m sortof giving them money to hire protection. but there’s no actual protection involved anymore ; so really I’m giving them money because I can’t symbolically protect them any longer … yeah, I’m not sure I understand it either), etc). That’s all adding up :o

We decied we needed new diapers for DK because we just werent’ quite sure about starting with stained diapers there. We don’t really have any issues with them, but we’re not sure about the reaction we’d get from family. OTOH, my parents have suggested that we could just use disposables over there, since they sell them in the shops it’s not like we’d have to pack two weeks worth of diaps. But we just can’t really see our way clear to using disposables in the third world country where trash it tossed in the street to be collected later. Especially since we don’t use them at home. Sure, if we were using them daily already, we wouldn’t switch for the trip and we’d accept that it’s not that unusual there (I imagine a lot of the middle class and up use disposables, since that kind of thing is generally a trapping of “wealth”, in a way, because you can afford to THROW IT AWAY). But starting with cloth, and using disposables JUST for the trip just feels wrong :o

We’re still not sure what all we’re going to do where, but it’s probably going to involve lots of running around visiting family! My dad had seven siblings. Even if we just visit each of their houses for an afternoon, that’s one week spent on that. We’ll probably spend a night or two here and there, so it won’t be constant travelling. Quite.

And won’t it be fun to see how DK reacts to the environment and all those people around? Four seems to be about his limit for people he’s not familiar with, six with mommy and daddy. With my parents there, that only leaves two strangers. And that? That is NEVER going to be happening during this trip. Which means that this could get VERY exhausting. Very fast.

Posted in: DK, hindi, trips by attriel /
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Last night, I took DK out to the park after dinner, so he could play on the slide and the sandbox and the swing etc. Apparently someone broke one of the kid-swings :/ So that’s gonna have a line for weeks I bet.

Anyway, after playing on the equipment for nearly an hour, he wanted to walk down to the lake. So we went down the path, since the playground is right by the lake (I walk through the playground when we go on K’s walks to the lake). He went down on the floating dock to look at the water, although I drew the line when he tried to climb in :o Then we went back up, I carried him past the dock so he’d quit trying to peer over the edges, and he went raring off down the path. Sure, part of the after dinner playtime is to let him run down before bed, so this works. More interesting than looking at hte playground equipment, for a change of pace, too.

He did that for a while, then wanted to be carried. But threw an absolute HISSY when I tried to carry him BACK, so I carried him forward some, then he wanted down and walked the rest of the way to the dam. It’s like half a mile, and he walked more than half of that. So I was downright impressed.

Down by the dam, the path comes back up towards the road, and he kept trying to run up to it. So I figured he was ready to go home. Because he was no longer interested in further forward motion around the lake. But he wasn’t interested in turning around either. So I ended up carrying him home. Oh. My. God. I’m not in the best of shape, but I’ve gotten pretty decent with carrying him around. By the time we got home, I was wishing I HAD called kiir to come pick us up down by the dam. There’s a parking lot there after all. WHY DIDNT I CALL???

OTOH, DK came home, had a quick QUICK snack, and went up and passed out on the bed in like 5 mintues. So apparently it worked.

Tonight I wasn’t willing to carry him past the docks to start that little escapade. My arms, and especially my back, still hurt from yesterday kid!

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So, the problem with the mac? Turns out the contacts on the power connector were corroded. Rusted, kindof.

Kiir suggested that I look it up online and see if I could get an appointment with the “Genius Bar” at the Apple Store from online, that way we only had to go when we were actually going to talk to someone (we being me, and then Kiir and DK if he was up from nap ; we figured they could go down to the play area if I was waiting long)

Turns out that, at 11AM, the only appointment for that day it was showing was at 3:20. Damn am I glad I didn’t go over then. Especially glad since I would have been going over at like 2 or something otherwise. When we got there at 3, they were saying they were flat out of appointments for that day, and someone was ending up with an 8pm TOMORROW night as the next available. :o

Got there ~3:10ish, Kiir took DK to the Disney Store to look around while I waited, came back just as they called me to say “so, what seems to be the issue?” I explained that it wasn’t charging, that it had had some issues for a while, but the no-charge thing was new since Friday. Because, lets face it, if it won’t charge or run off the adapter, I can’t use it. Gonna be hard to develop new symptoms ;)

He started to look at the bits, and saw the end of the power adapter and immediately said “ah, this is probably it. This is awfully corroded. Did this get wet or something?” And I pointed at DK and said “It’s possible someone may have been sucking on it or chewing on it yeah”

He plugged in with their adapter , worked fine. Booted up to check that it was registering the charge etc. Looked it up in the computer , and apparently my AppleCare was never activated. When I purchased the laptop and the plan, they told me I didn’t need to activate it, they’d done it all for me. The box for the applecare was policy and contained the information about what it covered/etc. Apparently that was incorrect. Apparently I was supposed to activate it. He looked it up in the computer to check it’s warranty/etc, and could find that I bought an applecare when I bought the laptop, but that the laptop had new registered applecare. Ooops :o I’m almost positive that I no longer have that “worthless box”, but he suggested that, if I can find the receipt, I can call the support line and ask them to activate it for me, so I’d get the third year of service & support.

Mind you, infants chewing on the power adaptor connector isn’t covered by standard warranty or the extended care applecare policy. But he was a cool guy. Decided that, given that we didn’t waste his time or insult his intelligence by trying to snow him, and we came right out and TOLD him “yeah, it was probably the infant sucking and chewing on it, in that case”, he went ahead and marked it as warranty replacement so I didn’t have to pay the 80$ for the part. YAY! I wasn’t looking forward to paying, but I was totally ready to do so since this is really NOT “normal wear and tear” (irregardless of how many people with infants might actually encounter a similiar problem, it’s still not the ‘normal’ usage :o)

So he was cool, it was all good. Thanks man!

Posted in: general by attriel /
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So, we had the annual labor day cookout at my parents today. I called a few of my friends from high school that I’ve kept in touch with and invited them over (my parents know them too), it was a pretty good afternoon.

When I found out the first was coming, late this morning?, I called my parents to let them know that another person was attending, just so they knew. As they’re answering machine picked up, DK climbed onto a box in the kitchen and was trying to grab things (empty soda cans mostly) off the edge of the kitchen counter. So the first thing in the message was “DK! Get off the counter!” … Instant classic :o

Also, my parents always comment on how he seems to be constantly wet. Since i just tossed his diapers into the bag at the house, I counted them at the same time. We were there from ~3 until ~8, so around 5 hours. He had 9 diaper changes. 3 poopsie (which he was wet usually too), and one pool-related. So that’s an average of a fresh diaper every … 30-45 minutes? Yeah, no wonder! The pool one was because he went out with my dad to the grill, and then suddenly turned left and climbed into the kiddie pool they have in the yard when he comes over … With his diaper and wool shorties on and everything. *sigh*

Actually, later it turned out that my dad saw him and could have stopped him, but didn’t. I wish he’d've at least taken off the pants, yaknow? :o

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So the other day we were at the mall to let DK play in the play area there. It was either raining or threatening to rain (it’d been threatening since last saturday, and started raining wednesday evening i think). Either way, we went to the mall for him to play instead of the playground, so it wouldn’t be wet and dark.

After he ran around for a bit (and OMG, he is so much more confident and stable than he was when we first remembered it’s existence … LAST MONTH!!!) and played, kiir decided she needed something for dinner, so we hit the food court. She got fries, figuring DK would eat a few … and he did to her what she used to do to me. He ate more than half of them :o Kept sticking his hand out for another one ;)

While she was in line, though, I was letting him lead me around. He took me over to the escalator and we rode up, then he ran over and i put him on to ride down again. When we met up with Kiir , i told her “he went up and down the escalator all by himself!” She asked “Where were you?” “uh, i stood at hte bottom and waived?” And she got ready to be all hysterical that I was that incompetent and risked him and such … Apparently we don’t trust me to know that that would be dumb :o

(these events really happened, but the post is in jest)

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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So, my Macbook has decided to quit charging. I don’t know if its the charger or the battery, offhand. I’ve read some stuff that suggests that the chargers have a melting issue (that’s a hell of an issue, boys and girls!)

Mine doesn’t appear to be melted, but it also spends a bunch of time sitting on top of the A/C vent, so it’s possible that it fried internally without getting hot enough externallly to do real damage to itself.

Or my battery toasted itself. Or the PSU on the system itself ate it’s brains. Hard to say, really. I’ve had little flicker-y issues for a while, where the screen will dim partyway, like it’s off the charger, but while still on the charger. And the last couple months, getting the magsafe charger to connect properly and have it’s little charging light kick on has been a smidge on the lucky spectrum. We’ll see if I can’t get it fixed. If not fixed, diagnosed and cheap would be nice (because I don’t want to throw a bunch of money at it, but I do kindof like having my apple. I can use the windows laptop, but I’m used to using the mac, honestly)

Figure maybe monday I’ll run over to the apple store at the mall and see what they can tell me. wheeee

Addendum: Ugh. The pc laptop has this really huge ass area at the bottom to allow for the trackpad and the inch-tall mouse buttons … and it is seriously digging into my lower arms when i try to do anything on this thing! grrr, arg!

Posted in: general by attriel /
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So, DK didn’t wake up at all last night. I heard my alarm go off, waited a bit to see if he was going to stir or if kiir was going to come to the bed, but at 7 I decided I really had to get up and get ready to go to work.

Kiir doesn’t sleep in the bed with us anymore since she found out she was pregnant. There was barely room for me, her, and her pillows the last time. With DK taking up half the bed or more, she’s moved to his bed. We’re getting him used to falling asleep and being OK with it, then in another couple months we’ll move him to his bed (and kiir will move back to our bed). We might do it a bit sooner, but two weeks in india is gonna blow it out anyway, then thanksgiving, we figured might as well wait until December to move him over that path.

I understand he woke up about 7:30, though. Interesting note — I left the house about 7:30. Oh well. He didn’t fall asleep on her lap this morning, like he does sometimes (although 7:30 wasn’t THAT early for him to get up that he’d need the mid-morning nap, per se). And then he didn’t fall asleep at noon. Or one. Or two.

After not going down for his 2pm nap, he did, apparently, accidentally topple himself backwards down the stairs (on his back, head first), oops. So Kiir gave up on naptime. I got home, we ordered pizza, he ignored it for the most part, then got fussy …

I took him up about 6:55. About 7:05 he was flat out. Naps are for babies. Sleeping, though, that’s something he can get behind ;)

Posted in: DK by attriel /
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