Friday, June 30
Today while i was at my ymca summer camp we got lost on our way to see the japanese tea gardens(name one teen that would want to go there.) There were only eighteen people and we were riding in a full size school bus, which is the resturaunt that we were going to after going to the japanese tea gardens. When we were in the parking lot of the mission burrito the bus had to turn around; and in the process it got stuck just like austin powers got that little golf cart /mini truck stuck in a narrow hallway. but in our case it was a narrow road.
Thursday, June 29
Happy birthday, Nico!!!!!
I talked to the N-man this morning, who told me his real birthday wasn't until Sunday. Linda set him straight. Linda was wondering what shape of cake to make for his party, but Nico said just a round one would do, as long as it had frosting.
Erica volunteered (well, was forced to volunteer) at a homeless shelter today serving food. She seemed to enjoy it, although she was a little afraid of the people. She has made friends already, and seems happy when she gets in the car.
Wednesday, June 28
I dropped Erica off at the Y Teen Camp this morning. She had tears in her eyes when I left, even though she was excited about going. She's shy, and always has a hard time going up to people and meeting them. I worried about it all day, but when I went to pick her up, I could see her through the second-story window talking with someone and looking really happy. She had a lot of fun. They had a dance today, and her group got to decorate for it. They take field trips, and the Y has an outdoor pool. So at least she isn't bored anymore.
Speaking of bored, she's watching Ed play darts right now. I came home; I can only watch the first 2 1/2 hours of a match.
Tuesday, June 27
Now I understand why adults always found us so amusing as teenagers. All the stupid things we used to wear and think were cool were nothing compared to what kids wear today. Erica stuffs her shoes. Yes, kids today use socks to make their feet appear bigger than they are. She just bought a new pair of shoes with her report card money that have a pre-stuffed tongue. And kids today keep their sneakers perfectly clean, which was very un-cool when we were her age. She finds my remembrances of seventh grade quaint. She starts day camp at a YMCA near my office tomorrow. She's nervous that everyone will think she's weird.
Monday, June 26
Here are the shades we got for the guest room (but in a browner color). And here is our new toaster. Ed wanted to get two so that we could race them.
Sunday, June 25
We put roman shades in the guest bedroom today. They look really good - we'll probably put them in the master bedroom too.
We're going to a cookout at one of Ed's friends' house tonight, so we baked a Treebeard's cake. It's a local specialty. Erica and Ed are busy playing Playstation games.
The Kroger's here has U Scan checkouts. You scan the items yourself, swipe your ATM card, and put the stuff in a bag yourself (someone is watching to make sure you don't steal anything). It's a good idea - there are four of them, and they never have lines. There are still the regular number of regular checkouts, too.
Mail link at left....I had avoided putting one because I thought it might lead to bot-generated spam, but I get so much spam now anyway that it doesn't really matter.
Saturday, June 24
I wiped out on my bike riding with Erica the other day. She was hopping a high curb, and I decided to follow her. Mistake. I have a skinned elbow and lots of bruises.
We had a guy from a security company here today to give us an estimate on an alarm system. I had my computer hooked up to the TV to watch a DVD. Suddenly I got an e-mail, causing a loud whooping sound to blast through the speakers. The guy jumped three feet into the air. I guess his job makes him paranoid.
Wednesday, June 21
Alrighty, then. This site will soon be moving to batterman.org. This site will also be available for all family activities...journals of Montana, say, or anything else you can think of. Everybody has e-mail addresses at batterman.org, too, which I think are aliased to your current e-mail address (if I did it right), but are also true POP addresses which you are free to use directly if you like (just let me know so I can give you the set-up information for POP).
Tuesday, June 20
I've been going in to work early so I can come home at 4:30 and ride bikes with Erica. Today we rode from the house to some paths along Buffalo Bayou. The paths were actually quite hilly, and a lot of fun. It turns out we could ride the whole way downtown. We wound up behind the opera house, which has fountains and steps leading down to the bayou. The paths wound through some tropical plantings, through a sculpture park, and across grassy fields. We're tired now. Ed's playing darts, so we're just going to hang out and play video games.
Sunday, June 18
We went to Kemah today for a Father's Day brunch with Ed's friends Bob and Linda, Bob's sister and family, and his parents. Kemah is pretty touristy, but nice, too. There are a lot of sailboats there. If we get a boat, that's probably where we'd sail it - on Galveston Bay. So a big crab brunch, then a ride on the kiddie train and the ferris wheel.
This evening we took Erica on a short bike tour of the Heights. We hadn't noticed that the speed bumps and drainage pipes made such good bike jumps; now we know.
Saturday, June 17
Our next door neighbors are deep-frying a turkey in their backyard. They seem a lot more southern than most Houston people. In fact, most of our neighbors, who have lived in this neighborhood for generations, seem like they live out in the country, not right in the city. That's changing, but our side of the Heights is definitely not the Yuppie side.
Erica arrives in three hours. Her plane was delayed because it hit a bird on the way to San Francisco. Once her plane was delayed because they were waiting for a pair of eyeballs for transplant.
Friday, June 16
My project at work has heated up. Once this gets approved, my application will need to be working perfectly - this is what it's for. I've written the contact manager, the order tracking system, and will be working on the forecasting and revenue recognition tools for it next. Not that I know anything about that, of course. I'm just winging it. Anyway, since this will need to be fully functional by July 5th, I won't have any trouble getting away to Pennsylvania by the 15th.
I created a database of potential customers yesterday from a melange of existing databases (Williams Communications Solutions is a product of many mergers and re-organizations). Today I was testing my search algorithm by typing in random companies, and tried Uniscribe. All locations were in the database, with a friend of mine listed as the contact for the Pittsburgh location. It reminded me of when I used to look through the databases at Uniscribe for people I knew.
Wednesday, June 14
Maybe we don't need to learn to use graphics programs; we
can just learn Perl.
The heat here only bothers me on weekends. During the week, I park in
a garage and walk to work through the mall and an enclosed walkway. I'm
actually freezing most of the day, due to over-air-conditioning. It's
only on weekends when I try to do yardwork or organize the garage that
it's too hot. The garage is unfinished, with no windows or ventilation,
so it gets well above 100°. I won't be setting up a workbench in there
anytime soon!
Tuesday, June 13
There is a gorgeous sunset outside the window that my computer is by. Right now, I have it set up in the family room, which faces the backyard (west). In the afternoon there is way too much light coming in, but tonight it's all pink and blue. It's 8:42. I guess it stays light pretty late here in the summer.
I set up AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) here so I could chat with Erica, and so that she can message her friend's while she's here.
Wow, the sunset is getting even more beautiful. Wish I had a digital camera! Although the garage blocks a lot of the view.
Sunday, June 11
How we spent our day:
- Spent nearly two hours looking for Ed's wallet.
- Found wallet in stupid place.
- I went climbing at the Texas Rock Gym. Ed went to look for curtains. He bought a Martha Stewart rake instead.
- We went for a bike ride.
- Cooked dinner.
Sigh....I've got to try to do more interesting things to write about.
Saturday, June 10
I just found out last night that Erica arrives next weekend (well, I knew that she was coming, I just didn't realize it was this soon). The guest room is still full of boxes and doesn't have curtains. Another busy weekend!
Thursday, June 8
As if I wasn't trying to learn enough new things at once, now for a new system I'll probably be working on the users asked if they can have it sync automatically with Outlook...so I need to figure that out.
Does anyone mind if we still have moving boxes stacked in front of the windows in lieu of curtains when you come to visit? It's looking more likely.
Wednesday, June 7
I'm back from Cincinnati. I really liked it; it reminded me of Pittsburgh and made me kind of homesick. The training was good. I learned a lot about DHTML and Visual Basic that I hadn't seen before. I'm too tired to write more, though. It's almost midnight here, and I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. I'll write more then.
Sunday, June 4
We didn't do anything fun again this weekend. Just organized. Although we did find a good place to get a beer - The Bank Draft. The dart boards and pool tables are in the vault.
I'm going to Cincinnati tomorrow, and won't be back until late Wednesday night, so I probably won't update this until then.
Saturday, June 3
I bought a reel mower today, so the grass was finally mowed. This mower worked really well; I wish I'd had one like that for my secret garden or Andy's house. While I mowed, Ed organized the kitchen drawers. We generally have reverse gender roles when it comes to that sort of thing.
We also dropped a bundle at Target buying things like cleaners and storage containers. Then started to look at window treatment (we're using boxes now), and realized what a fortune that will cost. Oh well.
Friday, June 2
Busy couple of days...I demoed my application to two groups yesterday. The first was the group that will be using it. Apparently they were talking about it favorably in the elevator afterward, and were overheard by the head of the "eSolutions" group, who then asked my boss if I could show it to that group. So all of that led to an interview with them, and they want to offer me a permanent position. One thing they are working on is an application that automatically generates proposal via the intranet. I saw it today, and it's pretty impressive. You choose from various templates, then customize what you want in the proposal. Then you click a "build" button, and Word opens on your computer and you watch as a twenty page proposal (with cover letter) is created before your eyes in about four seconds. Anyway, it's a third-party tool, but they want to start programming it themselves. So I am going to Cincinnati on Monday to have training at the offices of the company who developed the product.
Thursday, June 1
Here's Linda's web journal.
I know I haven't been posting many links, but here's one I found just now:
WordPerhect (uses Flash)
Re: my post earlier. I almost forgot...I also became a licensed Texas driver in May. Which means I can now run stop signs willy-nilly. Honestly, you will never see this infraction committed so frequently as here. People waiting for their light to turn green will always, due to fear, pause a full four seconds before venturing into the intersection. This is because not only do people fly through at the obvious tail-end of a yellow light, but the three vehicles behind them go through as well, without any hint of yellow left. They must not ticket for that here, because absolutely everybody does it. If the light turns red before you get to it, the people behind you will honk their horns if you don't go through anyway. Scary.
Also re: my earlier post. I'm pretty much in awe being on
the 31st floor of my building (about halfway up). The past two days, window
washers have been on my floor and I've had to go over a few times to watch.
Also today, I had a meeting with some bigwigs and I had to interrupt to
point out a plastic bag drifting upward past the window. On the 31st floor!
I'd love to be up near the top. Ed says there's an observation deck up
there...I need to remember to go up. There's also a fountain outside that's
like a waterfall. Pretty neat. I like working in a building that was designed
by a famous architect.
Wow, May's over. A big month: I got a new job in a skyscraper, turned 37, moved into a new house, finally got my things back.
I went with Ed to darts last night because we haven't been doing anything but unpacking. Not that watching them play darts is exciting, and I actually read most of the time, but at least it seemed like a social event.
This weekend is something called Sculpture 2000, an art event, so I'm sure we'll get out and do that.
