Escape Attempt III - The Final Attempt

Well it seems that the irascible mastermind of the previous two escape attempts [ (1) (2) ] has finally seen enough to give it a go on his own. On Tuesday Caleb did a runner. At Chiara's school no less.

Let us just say that everyone survived and leave it at that. I think that he's going through "The Terribles Twos". He seems to have developed this crazy level of defiance such that anything he is told to do is immediately wrong. Most kids seem to do this at some stage.

It is extremely difficult not to anthropomorphize the child with some kind of devilish nature when this happens. He is supposedly an innocent little child I can't help but see him as something more like a criminal mastermind. At least I always liked the bad guys in films.

He's just lucky he is cute.

Karmic Justice and Escape Attempt II - The return of Escape Attempt

Occasionally the universe exhibits a sense of humor. Or, if you prefer not to believe in a white-bearded dude who watches us and guides us, maybe it is just our perception of the universe which is sometimes skewed with a comedic bent. Whatever the case, sometimes a spark of cosmic laughter seems to entwine itself around our life-thread and keep the story moving in way that makes you smile.

In this particular instance I had one of those moments where I did something that I thought maybe wasn't entirely right. It wasn't fully wrong, on a scale of Black and White it would be a kinda creamy color. Allow me to tell you the tale.

We went out to dinner after work on Friday night to say farewell to a co-worker who has been with Creative Nature since the beginning (and before but who's counting). I left all of my stuff back the office and so when dinner was completed, I came back to the bullpen to pick up my laptop and other flotsam that I figured I'd need over the weekend.

The trouble is that I was thirsty and so I grabbed a can of coke from the fridge at work. There is a vending machine upstairs but it meant upsetting security more than I really had to and besides, the drinks fridge was open on Friday afternoons anyway. I'll admit that I felt a little guilty, mainly because it's a stretch to put midnight into the phrase afternoon and keep a straight face.

I slaked my thirst and grabbed another can on my way out. It sat next to me on the drive home and I started to feel kinda guilty about it. Like it was staring at me thinking, I know what you did. Not a big thing but I felt bad about it anyway. Once I got home, I went inside and forgot all about it.

The next day,  I was surprised to hear my car door open. This was because it was locked. By the time I'd got to the window to check it out the alarm was going off.

My wife was first to the door so she rushed out to the car and I suddenly had a craving for caffeine. Remembering the soul-bought can of sugary goodness I called out to Barbie, "Grab the can of coke off the font seat me, would you?". She just started to laugh.

It was about lunchtime and the can had been sitting in the sun for hours. It had of course exploded. The pressure of the can blowing is what cracked the door open and set off the alarm. Justice had been royally served.

The second thing to happen this weekend was that another miraculous escape was attempted, once again facilitated by my eldest son. This time the escapee was our dog who gleefully pelted across our neighborhood until Barbie tired her out.

I was in the car with the kids, learning the hard way just how difficult it can be to hunt down a dog at twilight in a car through an urban rabbits warren with three kids. One crying because he missed his mum, one crying because she missed her dog, and one pointing at the moon and giggling with delight, totally oblivious to the trouble he had just caused. 

I'll leave you a thought which I believe is pertinent to this story. It goes something like this:

Life may not always be fair but if it were then you'd deserve all of the stuff that happens to you. At least this way you get to complain about the unfairness of it all.

Introducing the family

Well Brian posted a photo of his kids so I thought I'd do the same. I hunted around for a little while and this is the first one I found with all three of them. My daughter is eldest and her name is Chiara. My eldest son is Caleb and my younger is Will.

 Remember that last week Caleb let Will out the front door. They certainly keep everyone on their toes. But I can't even imagine life without them.

I also thought I'd post a photo of Malta. And not just to prove that I hadn't done away with her (if that were my intention she'd be holding today's newspaper). It's because she's also a member of my family. As you can see, she's a wannabe dingo.

I wasn't going to  put in a picture of Boris (our cat), partly because being a typical cat, he wouldn't sit still long enough. Partly because I had always thought that home pages dedicated to peoples cats represented, at the same time, the worst and the best fundamental ideas of the Internet. Then I remembered one that I took when we first bought our camera. At the time Boris was keenly interested in the little bobbly thing hanging from the wrist-strap on the camera.

For some examples of extremely strange cats (who do sit still and not just for photography) check out this site.

I'm not going to post a picture of myself or Barbie. That will have to wait until we are rock stars and the paparazzi catches up with us.

Ah well, I'm off to feed the animals then. Good Night Australia!

 P.S. The pictures came out a little messed up because of a WLW/Blogger/My Brain malfunction. Hopefully the next time I do this I can get this all working a little better.

Daylight Savings - Good idea or the collapse of free will

I started to write a comment on this post and after 20 minutes I realized that it was getting long enough to be a stand alone post on its own. I have been on the warpath about daylight savings for quite some time.

I imagine that most people with with young kids will all agree with me when I say:

Yeah, daylight savings is cool because I get to argue with my 4 year old about going to bed when the sun is up.

But we aren't all parents of young kids. Many people seem to have a genuine interest in daylight savings. So what sorts of reasons do people have?

Extending trade time with the Eastern States is a joke. So is being able to go to the beach after work. You could always go to the beach before work and monetarily I'll bet we do more trade with the U.S. but we don't wind back our clocks 12 hours to be in sync with them do we?

I've often complained that I have a lot of rights but that not voting isn't one of them*. I understand that democracy is supposedly based on collating the voice of the people and doing what they want. Or at the very least, doing what most of them want.

But that isn't what happened. We did say no. What's next? Does the government say "Hey, let's join the French Republic" and when we all say no they'll do it anyway. That sounds like democracy went out the window right? It sounds like a dictatorship. It sounds totalitarian. It sounds like an Australia I don't want to be a part of*.

* Before people go on about it: Yes I am aware that there are many places where people don't have anywhere near the rights that I do and yes, I understand that Australia is a pretty good place to live. But I do have the right to complain (unlike the group of spineless Americans** who choose not to vote) and I'm choosing to exercise that right.

** I also realize the irony of calling non-voting Americans spineless in the same story as I complain about not having the right to not vote. I believe I should have the right, that doesn't mean I would exercise it.

Technorati tags: Politics, Daylight, Savings, Rants

"Mac Driver used to cure World Hunger"

Okay so before you read this post you should probably know that it is in response to this post. Basically I typed up a long comment (like really long) and then hit publish and I got timed out and lost my work. I should know better because I'm a web developer and get these sort of complaints from customers all of the time.

Anyway, after reading about Max's "Mac Driver" I came up with an alternate use for the device. The reasons for this alternate use are based on three correlated axioms;

1. Macintosh computers make extremely attractive paperweights
2. Macintosh computers would be okay if it weren't for those pesky Macintosh users AND
3. Whilst some Macintosh users would make extremely attractive paperweights they are unlikely to stand still long enough for effective paper-immobilization.

This leads me to the alternate use of the Mac Driver which is to fire Mac users into the sun. Since I cannot be bothered doing the calculations for determining the adjustments required to accelerate a person towards the sun at escape velocity, it is my firm belief that we can fire these unfortunate people into third world countries to help with world hunger.

Our greatest fear then becomes one of them surviving and rising up with a pissed off, hungry, third-world country backing them, demanding things like Special menus and so on in that fashion.

I got the dog owner blues

Man did I ever not want to get a dog. When first the dog was on the horizon here was my thought process:

Dogs are smelly, messy, needy, loud, obnoxious, and expensive pets which have all of the drawbacks of hermit crabs but are not as attractive.

Now, I love my dog (don't tell anyone I said that). And I find it wierd when I come home and she isn't here. But dammit if she wakes up the kids one more time by barking at the darkness I'm gonna have to do something the RSPCA wouldn't approve of.

That is the end of my story.

What is the Hindenberg Effect?

I'm going to post this on both blogs. I have a friend who loves to rant. I mean really rant. He could rant for his country. And win the gold. He is that good.

Anyway, I've been bugging him for weeks about starting a blog. The blogosphere is the perfect place to rant. Maybe no-one is listening now, but who knows what the future may bring, right?

Well, today he writes his first blog post and I couldn't be happier. He starts our with a great rant about people with ridiculous bits in their surnames. Have a read here at The Hindenberg Effect.

Now if only I could get Zerone doing it as well. Hmmm.

One arrival and one escape

First off; HUZZAH! my graduation certificate arrived yesterday. It has been stored safely away from jammy fingers and other such hazards (why is the sound of ripping paper so soothing to children) until such time as I get up to the shed and dig out that frame I bought 10 years ago for it.

That was the arrival. The escape was a group effort by my boys. Children are a conspiring and enterprising collection of people. They have this nasty habit of watching your motions and picking the optimal time to do something crazy. Like when they wait until the stove is boiling over before poking each other in the eye with sticks covered in unspeakable materials.

In this particular case, the children seem to have timed the minimum amount of time one needs to go to the bathroom. When my wife went to bathroom yesterday, our eldest son (nearly three years old), obligingly unlocked the front door (with the key), to let out our youngest son (just over one and a half).

Barbie has had practice going to the bathroom during the day when she's with the kids. She's got it down to seconds. But in that time our one and a half year old was at the next street and running like the unspeakable beast himself was after him. Giggling insanely.

I'd like to think that this is all a bit coincidental. That my eldest son just happened to open the door and that the younger one just happened to make a break for it. By accident. I am, unfortunately perhaps, inclined to beleive otherwise. This is mainly based on two things.

Firstly, I know my kids and they ARE evil incarnate (like all kids really). Secondly, when I got home and put the little bugger on my lap, he looked out the window at the corner of the street and waved at me and said "Seeya!" for about five minutes.

Anywho, after a harrowing experience, the kids are safe, the uni degree is safe, and everything turned out well. We are in the process of installing velcro to the ceiling so that the kids can be kept out of mischief whenever necessary.

Where the heck have I been?

While I'm sure that the legions of fans I used to have have since run away, I thought it was important to say something anyway.

I did have a few ideas for posts in mind. The joys of minor surgery, the anethsetising effect of badgers and pirates on small children, my hatred of blog-based development. But I really haven't had the time.

I did spend some time trying to alleviate this problem (too much in fact), and the results somehow ended up here. I am not going to go into details here because I have already spoken about it. (Follow the link).

But the question remains. What to do with two blogs. I actually think that this is a good idea. This one will remain a personal craziness blog where I can let down my hair and go nuts. And the other one will be a little more straight-laced and will focus more on the tech industry.

Well that'll do for now, but I'll hit back another post soon about pirates and badgers and their surprising effect on children, I promise.

P.S. Good luck Nettie, we're with you 100%.