Madeleine on her elephant

One of the things that I've noticed on babies (meaning Madeleine, as you never really notice these things except with your very own) after noticing everything else, is that they have perfectly clear eyes where the whites have no veins, no redness, no imperfections of any kind.

When was the last time you've looked at your eyes close up in the mirror? I do now from time to time. Mine are yellow, thinly veiny (not like Ann's though because she wears contacts) and a little hazy. I should start worrying about glaucoma or something since I don't care for my eyes that much.

I notice little things like this more and more these days. How imperfect my body has become from age, abuse, staying up late, drinking too much coffee. Madeleine naps twice a day and in between is always too active for us. But when she's asleep, she's an angel in repose. Her bright (and I really mean bright) whites of her eyes makes me think back again to when I may have had the same--too long ago to remember probably. I wonder if anyone noticed when they stopped being so. I'm going to have a bgzillion pictures of her eyes to give to her when she starts drinking coffee. Probably when she's 17 and a freshman in college or something... I'm going to tell her, "Madeleine, no-no, no coffee...", shaking my little finger at her and hoping she doesn't either head-butt me or smack me in the face with her little hands. Okay, her hands will be much bigger then and she's be less likely to head-butt me.

Such are the thoughts I have now. All from the pretty, innocent, clear whites of her eyes that I look into everyday.

Read More

Look, we have teeth!

If you've read my last blurb on Madeleine's eyes, you can imagine what I could say about teeth. I'll just leave it at that she's getting lots of them now.

After only having two lower teeth for a while, a seemingly whole mouthful are sprouting. (I'll just add, when was the last time that you went to see your dentist?)

Read More

Triangle Man

That's the title of a TMBG song that Ann hates and that I love for some reason. I think they were the second band (after the Beetles) that I thought, "wow, you can sing about something other than sappy syrupy dribble?").

Anyway, rather than distract myself and everyone from the focus of this blog, which is our little girl and our family, I decided to move my random musings and technical links and other boring stuff to another blog, Triangle Man. Unfortunately "threesides" was already taken and I had to opt for "thresides". I seriously hope that "threesides" doesn't turn out to be some spammer or worse. (Okay, I bothered to check and I think I'm safe for now.)

And I wish I could have provided at least some quotes from the last two audio books that I listened to, but unlike paper books where I would tend to underline salient points and interesting quotes, with audio books I just listen on and on. So I'll just say that I found some of the historical statements in Sleeping with the Devil to seem questionable or incomplete in retrospect(or at least I can't fully accept with only the author's say so) and A Walk in the Woods was really, really funny. I enjoyed Bryson's book a lot and recommend that without reservation.

http://18.177.100.66/

Read More

Random updates

Nuptuals : Mike and Soo are engaged. Allen and Vivian are engaged. Andrew and Cindy are engaged. My brother and Mami have set a date. And I'm so looking forward to checking out the food at Matt and Rebecca's wedding so I hope we get invited.

Employment : Uh, um, uh, I'm switching jobs (again). This is my last week at Barclays. Starting at BofA next Monday.

Current trials and tribulations : HD in 12" powerbook died, luckily I have a 17" :). The pigeons are back in the balcony and I've waited too long to check on them... two eggs laid in a nest already. How do I get rid of them? How stupid am I to stay up till 3AM to update a blog that's been quiet for a month? Madeleine hid one slipper and now only one foot can be comfortable walking around the apartment! I've looked all weekend and still no joy. Giving Verizon the boot and got Vonage VOIP for $15.00 /month. I have a spare 802.11b router now. Any takers? How's $20?

Good night!

http://47.241.129.131/

Read More

Book o' the month : A Walk in the Woods

Bill Bryson is really funny to listen to... I have the audio book now and given my nature loving tendencies, his blurbs on bear attacks is tempering my love of the wild a little, but with lots of laughs...

Read More

When do you have enough computers?

Let me do an inventory:
1) 1998/1998 powermac g4 500 mhz --> main server, always on
2) 2004 powerbook 12" g4 1.33 mhz --> only laptop, living room computer
3) 2002(?) imac g4 833 mhz --> kitchen computer
4) 2005 mac mini --> iTunes server and dvd ripper
5) 2004 amd pc --> dual book windows/linux (corp remote access)

Is there room for more?  Honestly, one can always do with more or less.  Since my pb 12" is not serving as my development machine since it's being used to shop of ebay for baby clothes for Madeleine most of the time, I figured I could get another one.    Dilemmas, dilemmas, I'm not made of money and Ann will kill me... but I was thinking of buying a Sharp Zaurus and that would've set me back $950 anyway...

Read More

Sleeping with the Devil

Interesting story about the house of Saud and our country's ties to it. Listening to the audio book version. Only 1 hour into it and it's very disturbing. International politics and world affairs eye opener... kinda like Fast Food Nation did for my notion of McDonalds. Worth reading, even if it pisses you off about world we live in and the reliance on oil we can't give up. Damn my suv... but it's such a nice vehicle... :(

3/6/06 Follow up...
Saw a History Channel special on the development of militant Islam and it gave a more level handed perspective than that of this book's accont (though most of his arguments against the Saudi family still sound valid). A fuller history (from the time of Muhammad) paints a different portrait of the people and religion. Though their intolerance of the West and changing times is easy to dismiss as dogmatic and medieval, I don't think Europe and America have a much to stand on given their own histories. It's hard to have a perspective on it when living through the times (and of course not having been impacted in any of the acts of terrorism). I get the impression that like in war, the good guys and the bad guys appear to be determined by who wins and who happens to write the histories.

Read More