From Wit’s End

Last Sunday we used the internet to watch the penultimate episode of Trump’s Apprentice off of the laptop in the living room (The PC in the den being recently defunct). This was the first time we had ever watched a full TV program off the web instead of by more conventional methods. The picture was pretty clear, but the choppy movement made it look as though all of the final four contestants had just recently been replaced by androids.

Just this evening, we saw last week’s episode of LOST off of the internet, piped into the TV by means of an S-video cable from the back of the Mac — widescreen format, with just a few Chrysler commercials interspersed. It was pretty cool. It froze for a minute about two-thirds of the way through, which prompted me to go ahead and hit record on the VCR for this week’s episode that was just starting. So we won’t throw out the VCR just yet, but its days are numbered, I think.

Rachel has christened the new iMac “Pippin”, which is apparently an older variety of apple. [I like the name, of course, because its Tolkien-ish.] She uttered the above observation when she noticed the white spot of light fading in and out on the front of the computer as it was in sleep mode this evening. So it seems like the Queen approves of the new resident of the house.

I’m heading to the nearest Apple Store (which is in Charlotte) to learn more about Macs and then buy one. I was thinking of doing something like this on Friday, but then decided that I couldn’t wait. Like I told Rachel, it matters not when the hookey is played, but that the hookey is played. Watch for an update later today.

UPDATE (about 10pm): Success! The Mac is on the desk, plugged in and turned on. Here’s how it got that way:

I dropped Jack off with Ellie at 9am, and took off for Charlotte. I arrived at the huge mall in Charlotte at about 10:15am and found the Apple Store. I peppered the sales lady with questions, and settled on what I thought I would: the higher-end 17″ iMac G5 with a DVD writer. I carried the big white box back to the car, then went back in a did a lap around the mall (following the right wall, of course), only stopping to procure a slice of cheese pizza in the food court and once more at the Apple Store to pepper the sales lady with more questions. I left around noon and got home at around 1:30pm.

I began disassembling the old technology setup and too stock of what item I had to go out and purchase to make the new setup happen. I went out to Lowe’s, Radio Shack and Trenholm Plaza to get said items and do a few errands as a favor to Rachel. Back at home around 3:30pm, I continued work on the setup. Realizing that I bought the wrong size shelf hardware at Lowe’s for the TV cabinet, and also was short about 1 foot of USB cord for my printer, I blocked off the den-side of the room from the interference of Jack and zipped out one more time. I picked up Jack at about 5:30pm between stops at Lowe’s and Radio Shack, and came home to start dinner. I put a pot on to boil for some spaghetti, and reheated the leftover grilled chicken quarters from the weekend. Rachel got home from work just in time to cut some lettuce from our garden for some salad. After dinner, I wrestled with hiding the cords, while Rachel took Jack with her to the grocery store. When she returned around 9pm, Jack was ready for a bottle and bed. As Jack took his formula, I brought in the groceries and put them away.

Finally, when Jack was finally in his crib and asleep, I finally got to turn on the Mac. BONG. A dialog pops up to tell me that it needs to get some updates from the internet, to which I give my assent. The downloading starts, and then it stops prematurely. It had attempted to use a wireless network that wasn’t mine, and I closed that and gave up on figuring out how to fix that until tomorrow. As I finally finish hiding the wires from little hands, the white screen falls asleep. That being a good idea, I’m off to bed as well.

That was some good hookey, if slightly expensive.

Well, the e-Machines PC that I bought about three years ago finally flamed out this afternoon. There were a few capacitors on the motherboard that had worn out to a point that when they reached a certain temperature they would open up and shut the computer down. Kudos to the Geek Squad at Best Buy for showing this to me.

Soooo… I’m going to be switching over to a Mac in the next week or so! I don’t think I’ll be getting an iBook, I’m pretty sure it’s either going to be a Mac Mini or an iMac. AppleTV is also very attractive to me, but I suppose that could wait while I get accustomed to the main computer. Let me know if you have any suggestions or pointers. Look back in at most a week to see what I decided.

I woke up this morning, made a bottle, and sat on the couch in the den to feed Jack. While I was feeding him I looked at the VCR to check on the time, and I couldn’t believe that the time has passed by so fast. I’m used to time just whizzing by in the mornings, but this was ridiculous. I could have sworn that I got up a little bit after 6am, and the VCR told me that it was 7:20am. What? Then I figured it out: The VCR itself had no idea of the ministrations of our well-meaning all-knowing federal government concerning the start of Daylight Savings Time, and innocently was trying to be helpful by springing ahead one hour as it was programmed to do. Somehow I don’t think changing the time on certain machines four times a year instead of twice a year is saving any energy.

This picture was taken at Andy and Ellie’s house from their MacBook.

My son Jack has erupted his first tooth, and my Mom knew something about computers that I didn’t — namely how to enable posting to this blog past the new firewall on my computer. Will wonders never cease…

…It’s a good thing I found all the pieces to put it back together, because the kit didn’t provide any extras.

…almost as much as Ovaltine.

Tom got me a very neat puzzle for Christmas. One of the cool things about it is that I get to put it together myself. I looked up some instructions on the internet, but it still took me an hour or so to get the right idea. Observe…

Sorry about that. I’ve been tweaking the PHP of the two sites inorder to separate the archives of the two sites from each other, and since last night, this personal page had no posts on it. I added another “If…Then” statement, and everything is hunky dory again.

P.S.– Just so you know, I haven’t posted much in the past couple of days because I am concentrating on digitally archiving and backing up certain personally important documents. More on that later.

This page now has its own address:

http://www.fromwitsend.org

This should be a little easier to remember than “…?cat=201″, right? Enjoy.

Wow, what a month! As all of you should know by now, My son was born on May 9th, and his appearance on the world scene definitely made waves on this little corner of the internet. Behold, the Jack-alanche!

For the day…

…for the month…

…and for the year…

As you can see, we had about 850 hits for the month of May. It’s a great tribute to all of you who cared for us and prayed for us through this past month as we came through the real Jack-alanche with colors flying high, a “promotion” for each member of the family (“Hey Mom, have I ever told you how Grand a Mother you are?”), and our numbers increased by one sweet little boy. Thanks again for all your support, and thanks for helping to welcome my son into the Wide World (Web).

These two pictures attempt to show something that we discovered about Jack in the past week or so: the little boy who is the son of an engineer is fascinated by the light and the rotary motion of the fan in the den. Hmmm…

The little boy wearing the “Little Engineer” outfit is studying the pattern of the couch, which bears a striking resemblance to graph paper. Hmm…

…more or less, anyway. Now that my family is safe at home, I’m going to be mainly going back to cultural observation and exploration on this site. I’m not sure what will become of my family’s personal blogging, but I am pretty sure its going to move away from Blogger. I suspect I will move it over to this site in some form, just because WordPress is a whole lot easier to use and more flexible. I’ll probably add a new category for personal entries here called “From Wits End“, and port over all my Blogger entries here, as I have time. What with our new little bundle of joy, all this might take a while, though.

Thanks for reading and keeping tabs on us. The Sitemeter box seen at the bottom of the side bar on this page has let us know how many people have been visiting, where they are visiting from and even what picture they looked at last. With this information and all the comments we got on the site, we have really felt the love, support, and prayers for our family during this most harrowing week.

So it will be back to business as usual here. It may or may not move a little slower here due to our new little Bundle O’ Joy, that remains to be seen. But if anyone would like to help contribute, just read the old Introduction & Rarely Asked Question pages, then register on the site if you are so inclined.

[Note: This post was originally on our old blogger site, which I neglected to update because I couldn't from the hospital's network.]

…I couldn’t blog here, so I “Hi-Jacked” (HA!) my other blog and continued our story there. It got pretty harrowing in spots, but God carried us through it with colors flying . Praise the Lord for his mercies are new every morning!

Meanwhile, I think my days on blogger are numbered, because it just stinks like a baby’s diaper.

UPDATE: I’m in the process of moving this blog to WordPress. Here’s where it’s ending up, so check it out.

…because Blogger is blocked by LMC‘s wireless network proxy, and my personal blog is on Blogger, I can’t post the current momentous events going on in our family any other way than by posting it here. So watch this space for updates about the arrival of our son Jack.

UPDATE: If you are just joining us, click here to find out how we got to the hospital.

[I'm sure afterwards I'll move what ever posts I write to the proper place, and then I will probably figure out how to get my personal blog the heck off of blogger. A word of advice: when you figure out that you want to start blogging, you may start out using blogger, but once you get into it and start getting serious about blogging, you will find Blogger to be inadequate to your needs. When that time comes, get into WordPress. It is an eminently superior Content Management System (a.k.a. blogging tool), and you will not regret moving to it at all. I'm done ranting.]

Anyway, stay tuned…

[Note: Originally posted on old Blogger site]

For those few who care, I am letting the “home-at-wits-end.com” domain name for this blog lapse. It will no longer work as of May 4th. In the future you may reach this blog by way of the following address:

http://www.sevenrealms.org/fromwitsend/

I have also placed a link to this personal blog from my “impersonal” blog, the Seven Realms, right under my picture on the Editor’s notes page.

That is all. As you were.

Just finished merging the picture blog with this one. So now it will take longer to load the pages, I guess. But if you care, you will patiently wait for the pictures, right?

I have also removed all the cultural commentary posts and will be porting them to 7R in the near future. After that, the latest metamorphosis of my online presence will be complete.

Well, I said there wouldn’t be anymore kitchen pictures, but these are not technically pictures of the kitchen, they are pictures of the den. When one of the contractors installed the cabinets and the light fixtures, he also moved the internet cable into this room and properly grounded one of the outlets so that I could move my computer in here. I hope to merge the computer and the stereo system, so that we can watch internet video on the TV, play MP3 music through the stereo system, etc. Also, with the computer here in the “middle” of the house, I won’t be quite so anti-social while Rachel’s in the kitchen or otherwise hanging around the house. The setup shown below is temporary, of course, but it is the harbinger of a new arrangement ’round these parts.

Oh, in case you’re wondering what that picture is on my monitor, just click here.

Well, I haven’t been saying that much about myself lately, being so busy with things other than myself. I told my mom today that I was going to be putting this blog back together this weekend after being away for a while. She said, “Yeah, it has been a while; there’s a hole in the roof and a few windows are broken.” I’m using one of the ready-made templates temporarily until I can come up with something better. The archives are back online, and I will be merging the photo-blog I was maintaining separately into this one. Stay tuned.