3MF

My shins hurt

It doesn't take me long to get sore when ice skating. I just got back from Rosa Parks Circle Ice Rink where you can skate for only a buck and that includes skate rental. They don't let all that many people on the ice at a time but luckily we got there early enough and there was no line. I only fell once which was pretty good for me. I'm glad feet are a lot easier to get around on than ice skates.

Gagrica family Christmas

I called Lara to wish her a Merry Christmas and she invited me over for dinner with her family. It was a wonderfully large feast with entertaining company (including her parents, sisters, grandparents, aunt and cousin). After dinner we play a good round of the name game. Following my teams close loss, we played spoons, which thanks to my quick reflexes and well-planned strategies, i was victorious. Finally we ended the night with euchre where Lara and I kicked some ass. It was very enjoyable.

Thus concludes my very untraditional Christmas. Yesterday i was pretty bummed out because i knew things weren't going to be the same as they were in years past; but things turned out really well. New traditions have to start somewhere. And as i reflect on the events of the past few days, i see that this holiday was more about friends than family and that makes me happy.

Flickinger family Christmas

I just got back from the Flickinger family Christmas gathering. I really wasn't looking forward to this event. We've been going to my grandmothers house on Christmas day every year since i can remember. My father is one of six kids in his family so there are lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins. It used to take forever to go around and have everyone open their gifts. But the last few years, there are fewer children there and some cousins are married and spending the day at other places so the crowd isn't that big. Even my sister wasn't there this year as she decided to spent the day with her boyfriend. For the most part, it was pretty boring.

The highlight of the party was the informal tradition that i had almost forgotten about. It usually begins with one of my uncles sharing a story about something that happened when he was a kid. Then the stories just start flowing out. My dad's family was large and dirt poor. Plus his parent's were no Ward and June Cleaver. There are tales about sibling fighting sibling and bizarre accidents that result such as a tin can lid stuck under a finger nail and a car run into a house. They talk about how awful their house was, how you couldn't flush the toilet without bringing up a bucket of water upstairs from the kitchen and how they took turns risking their lives to light the coal furnace. Each memory is funnier that the last. And while we heard must of the stories the year before, we still laugh out loud.

Picking up

I'm just getting ready to pick my friend Katie up from the airport. I hope she likes the sign.

Rear wiper mystery

I've probably spent way more time thinking about this than i should, but why do people cover their rear window wipers with plastic bags? It seems to me the plastic would reduce the friction and therefore the wiping action of the wipers. Can someone please tell me why you would do this; and why its only good for rear wipers and not the front ones?

Seven almighty rules

I was doing some cleaning today and i came across an old folder that had notes from the first improv class i ever took. If any one else took an improv class from Wyatt, these may sound familiar.

Randy's Almighty Seven Rules Of Improv

1. Dont forget the basics (trust)
2. Physicalize it!
3. CROW (character, relationship, objective, where)
4. spontanaeity, not creativity
5. blocking and accepting
6. give 'n' take
7. the wrench factory (narrative structure)

Randy's Seven Casual Tips For Comedic Improv

• The balance of power (status)
• characters, characters, and characters
• justification
• make the other guy funny
• find the game
• dont be funny, be real
• anchors and springboards

Back to school

So i signed up for classes today at GVSU (ok, technically it's just A class). I'll be taking Calc 2. This decision is based on the fact that it's one of the five classes that's not already closed and its at the least inconvenient time. I'm a bit worried because its been six years since i've taken Calc 1. I think i should start brushing up.

Christmas vacation

Today was my last day of work this year. Given that i don't generally like to take time off work and that we have a "use 'em or lose 'em" policy when it comes to vacation days at work, i can now stay home and get paid until January 5th. I'm pretty sure it will take me less time than that to drive myself crazy.

If you have any suggestions on how i can pretend to be normal and spend my time, please post them. If you suggest buying a Christmas gift for you, please include specific itmes you desire as i've already grown weary of picking gifts out for people. I'm just not good at it.

The name game

I just got back from a birthday gathering at Lara's house. We played "the name game" for entertainment. Now i have never played this game before, but i did see it before on an episode of Sports Night. Everyone writes down several names on individual slips of paper. These names are of famous people, real or fictional. All the slips are thrown into a bowl as the players are divided into two teams. One person from each team takes turns getting their teammates to say as many names as possible (exactly as they appear in the paper) without resorting to spelling or rhyming in forty five seconds.When time elapses, the unguessed name in thrown back into the bowl; there is no passing. If you don't know who the person, you must break the name down into parts or syllables. I though it was funny who many times the first name "steve" came up and how often we used "Mr Guttenberg's first name" as the clue.

Friend found

It couldn't hide forever.

Pomp and circumstance

I went to my sister's commencement ceremony today. She graduated from CMU with a bachelors degree in sports medicine. I was a bit disappointed that the ceremony took place in a room that hard to raise up its basketball hoops to accommodate. Why are sporting event the only thing people gather in large numbers for? OK, that's off topic; i'll leave that for another day.

I had plenty of time to think when not listening to the administration deliver their "welcome to the real world" speeches, hearing the speakers mumble the graduates' names they could not pronounce, and reading the oh-so-cleaver phrases written on the top of motor-board caps. With every one dressed in black processing about, it reminded me of a funeral; the death of education if you will. I guess that's why i have no interest in ever walking. I don't think i could ever say i'm done learning. There is a big difference from leaning and school and learning from actually working a job. I'll think i'll always need time to step away from the purely practical knowledge required at work, and play in the more academic and ideological knowledge of school.

Cause everything is Rent

Julia informs me that Rent is coming to town. It was the first musical CD i ever purchased. I got it back when i was working at Media Play; i remember hearing about it winning some Tonys and i noticed a lot of people were purchasing it so i thought i would give it a shot. I'm very glad i did. That soundtrack sparked my interest in theatre. I'd love to see again when it comes to town.

RSS Rant

Is RSS going to be torn part by the people who love it? Looks like that is what Dave Winer thinks.

CSS Links

I've been reading quite a few CSS related articles including choosing the right tags to style, writting the most efficient CSS, and checking out a few well-done examples for inspiration. I can't wait to tackle redoing our own corporate site completely with CSS to see if i can put these lessons to use.

Submit to this

The bread and butter of most of my recent web apps has been processing user form submissions. One of the things that's always caused me grief with web forms was how hitting the "enter" key in some cases triggered the form to submit. Many times the user wasn't done entering data or the form failed to pass-along the key/value pair associated with the actual submit button. Today I came across a nice little essay which sheds some light on the crazy quirks.

Flower Power

Ok, i just saw this new commerical for a Fuji digital camera where this dad is grilling a sales person about whether or not this camera will capture all the fine parts of a flower such as the petals, stamina, pistil, and finally peduncle; then the commercial cuts to "funny" twist and suddenly you want to buy it or whatever! I had no idea what a peduncle was so I just had to look it up. In case you were as curious as i was, here’s a helpful diagram.

Bottomless Crease

I'm going nuts. I'm trying to find my DVD player remote. Don't get me me wrong, my apartment is comfortable, but a bit sparsely decorated. There are not all that many places it can hide. And yet it's winning.

OK/Cancel

I came across an online comic strip called OK/Cancel a few weeks back. The authours focus on HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) topics; It's like a Dilbert for web deisgn teams. There's a new strip posted each Friday. If you work with the web, i recommend adding its RSS stream to your favorite aggregator.

Fish and quips

Fishschtick is holding auditions for their improv team this weekend. I'm debating whether or not to stop by. Having been on a team before, I know now tricky these things can be to put together. There is an incredible amount of trust involved with this type of performance. It would be nice to just perform and not worry about organizing everything, but i'm a bit out of practice.

Bach for more

Song i'm currently learning to play on my keyboard: Bach's Wohltemperierte Klavier I Prelude Number 1 [12k MIDI]. Big name, simple tune.

The Cheat is not dead

One Monday a year or two ago, Strongbad entered my life. While surfing around at work, I came across a link to homestarrunner.com. At the time, it seemed just another flash cartoon site that were quite common. This site did stand out because it has a weekly feature where a character named Strongbad would read and respond to peoples' emails. The authors have a very quirky yet computer savvy sense of humor that caught my attention. It soon became a ritual at work that the geeks would gather in a randomly chosen cubicle to watch the new updates at the beginning of every week. The site’s grown a lot since then and more and more people are now familiar with the characters that hang out there. The reason I bring it up today is that I received my newly released "Strongbad sings and other type hits" CD in the mail. It’s not going to win a grammy, but it did put a smile on my face today.