Category Archives: Family

Well, that was a stupid move

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While killing some time between sessions at WWDC, I saw that my mother-in-law was online so I thought “Hey! what a good time to back up her data.” So took but a moment to start a rsync backup that I do of her user directory on her machine to my system at home. To keep things from getting out-of-hand with regards to space, I use the –delete option which removes any files not in the source directory.

Like all mistakes, they happen because you don’t pay attention and that is exactly what happened to me. I was in the wrong destination directory and was syncing the files to ‘.’ (the current directory) so it happily started deleting files that weren’t in the source. Unfortunately, I was in my home directory at the time. Once I realized, my mistake, I stopped it but not before it had deleted my mail repository, my website, and my blog (this one).

Fortunately, regardless of my horribly rookie mistake, I also back up my user directory two different ways every day. A few restores later and I had all but a few hours of email restored and the entire website and blog.

Good for me, I guess, but it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Lesson learned, use explicit paths.

How much can a single click cost?

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My pride is hurt. Quite brused, in fact. You see, my family and I were headed over to a pool party/potluck for our church’s youth pastor who was leaving to work with The Navigators in Arizona. And I pressed the wrong button.

You’re probably confused. Perhaps I can explain. One of the features we really like about our house is the fact it has a rear detached garage and a driveway that goes down the side all the way to the street (like a good driveway should). Since we have dogs, we installed a gate shortly after we moved in at the end of 2001. Being practical and forward thinking, we realized that a manual gate while cheaper would get old really quick (e.g., pull up, get out, open the gate, pull through, get out, close the gate…) so decided to have it motorized. The installers did a really good job and even hooked up the mechanism to the middle button of our three buton garage door opener so that we didn’t have to worry about using two different remotes. Considering that two of the three buttons weren’t doing anything, it certainly made sense.

Flash forward to yesterday. I was pulling out of the garage having previously opened the gate and was backing down the driveway. Since I was clear of the garage I pressed the button to close the garage door. Moments later: **crunch** For a moment, I didn’t realize what happened and even when I got out and looked at the damage, I still wasn’t clear as how it happened. After I calmed down a moment, I realized that I must have hit the wrong button and the gate started closing right as I was approaching it.

It made contact exactly with the rear corner of the car at the edge of the gate. As a result, the turn signal/brake light was cracked, the rear bumber damaged, some small damage to the rear body, and 1 1/2″ steel frame along with two 5/8″ bars of the gate pushed in about a foot. To be honest, I probably couldn’t have done better if I tried.

The long and short is that only bad drivers that don’t pay attention have accidents like that. Me? I’m a good drive who considers himself quite careful and safe and would never have thought I would ever have an accident like that (by my hand at least).

We’re working on getting estimates for the car and gate. I’ll be lucky if I get off for less than $2000 for the both. We’ll see.

As a result, I’ve changed my driveway protocol. Open the door and gate, back out, stop, close the door and gate while stationary, and when completely closed, continue.

Ah, do I have to go back to work?

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I’m finishing up a week long vacation from work and to be honest, I have mixed emotions about going back. The primary event this week was taking the family (including my mother-in-law) to Kernville to go white-water rafting. Becky has always wanted to do it and since she got her eyes done in January, she didn’t have to worry about either loosing glasses or trying to enjoy it all blurry.

The trip was a blast and we’ve all decided that we will need to do it again. We may put it off a bit, though, so Brian will be old enough to go on a two or three-day outing.

A meeting is good, but at what cost?

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I had the occasion to make a business trip yesterday at the last minute. I don’t mind so much and, in fact, kinda like traveling. Becky, on the otherhand, is less comfortable with last minute changes so wasn’t overly enthusiastic. Oh, wait, did I mention changes? Well, you see, I was travelling with my manager and we had the same outgoing flight from San Diego at 7:14 AM. Unfortunately, it was cancelled along with another from the same airline headed to Chicago. Needless to say, there were quite a few people trying to find alternatives and after almost two hours of standing in line, I was able to get a seat on a later flight. My boss wasn’t as lucky and ended up buying a ticket on another airline to Oakland (I was flying into SFO).

The meeting happened and my boss and I were only about 60 and 30 minutes late, respectively.

That afternoon, we headed back to the airport to take the original return flight home only to find that the 6:32 PM flight was now leaving at 9:00. We tried briefly to get switched to an 8:00 flight, but didn’t want to stand in any more lines for only a one hour gain.

We boarded at 8:30 in advance of the pilots who arrived just before 9:00 (they were coming in from another airport). The plane took off about 9:30, landed at 11:00 and then I had to drive home.

From home back to home was 19 hours. All for a four hour meeting. Ugh.

Sometimes, it’s fun being a tourist

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Becky and I went away this past weekend though we didn’t go far. Like our last trip which was in our old haunts of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, we decided to stay in downtown San Diego. Specifically, The Westgate Hotel.

Not only did we stay in a hotel in a town we’ve effectively lived in our whole lives, we then proceded to do many of the standard “touristy” things common for the area:

  • We went to Historic Old Town
  • We walked around Horton Plaza
  • We had drinks at the Beach bar at the W Hotel (interesting, but the hotel is pretty pretentious)
  • Walked on the beach (Silver Strand)
  • Saw Amadeus at the Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado (really well done and David Cochran Heath gave a stellar performance as Salieri)
  • Had breakfast at The Living Room (SDSU location)
  • Walked around Belmont Park and had lunch at Canes
  • Went to a house party hosted by my manager
  • Enjoyed a pedicab trour of downtown
  • Walked on the beach (Cardiff-by-the-Sea)
  • Had lunch at our favorite Mexican restauraunt

It really was an enjoyable time and the best part, of course, was that I spent it with my wife.

Man, that was a “toot!”

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My kids gave me a really fun father’s day present that I was able to collect on this past Saturday. I’ve always been a fan of railroads. My grandfather was a conductor on the Denver & Rio Grand Western Railroad and like most kids, I was fortunate enough to have  a model railroad that I developed with my father.

Well, Saturday, I was able to take control of the OERM 1956 at the Orange Empire Railway Museum and their "Run One" program. It puts you in control of a locomotive by your own hands. After about 2 minutes of instruction of the rather basic controls, the instructor sat me down and said "Go."

I had about a mile worth of rail in a straight line. I spent next next hour going forward and back and trying to do so in relatively graceful manor (or at least as graceful a 115 ton engine can be). My kids started getting bored pretty quickly which wasn’t helped by the increasing tempuratures (it was 85 when we arrived and 102 when we left two hours later). I tried to engage them by letting them control the throttle or switching the engine from forward to reverse. That helped a bit. To be honest, I think the idea of controlling something that large is mostly lost on children especially since the concept of trains and their historical significance is all but uncomprehensible for them these days of overnight shipping and easy cross-content air travel.

It really was a blast and if you ever enjoyed building and running a model train, I believe you would enjoy it as well. My only complaint was that it didn’t include tasks like hooking up cars or dealing with switches. All-in-all, it will be something I’ll long remember.

Don’t bother and just give ’em the cake

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Since yesterday was our work day, we went out to dinner last night. One of Becky and my favorite places is The Original Roadhouse Grill which the kids hadn’t been to before. It was a nice meal and the kids enjoyed the whole eat-the-peanut-and-throw-the-shell-on-the-floor thing.

While we were there, there were at least three different birthdays at nearby tables. At Roadhouse, like most restauraunts, the servers come by and bring you a piece of cake and sing a little birthday song before getting back to their normal stations.

The problem, tough, is that the singing is very anemic. This is not a complaint specifically about Roadhouse as it is often the case at other restauraunts, too. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the problem. The servers are busy with their own customers, they feel a bit foolish when singing, and part of them probably doesn’t want to embarass the guest. My opinion (like you wanted it) is that if you can’t muster the energy to sing with some sincerity, don’t bother and just give ’em the cake.

It works for us

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We have a tradition in our family. One Saturday a month (although we aren’t terribly consistant with that), we work. What that means is we do whatever needs to be done around the house, cleaning, straightening, various projects, etc. No playing, just work. At the end of the day, if enough work is done (which seems to always happen), we go out to dinner.

Yesterday was our first work day in a bit. I worked on finishing the garage (I’m getting closer, but will probably need another weekend or two to get it all done) and Becky and the kids worked on cleaning the loft (purging old toys, puzzles, and games, mostly).

It worked out pretty well. The kids didn’t want to give up their toys even though we were paying $1-a-bag for donatable items. Becky and I will probably get rid of the bottom layer of toys the next time they are away.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again

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Last night, I was trying to finish up 24: The Game which I had borrowed from work and while I was almost done with only one "hour" (of 24) left (maybe 30-45 minutes of gameplay) it was late and I had a little headache so I went to bed.

About 90 minutes later, I woke up with a very uncomfortable headache. You know, the kind where it feels like your entire head is in a rather large vice. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, so I took two Tylenol and got back in bed. Unfortunately, it was too uncomfortable and my tossing and turning woke Becky up so I decided to go downstairs and wait for them to kick in.

It really was miserable. Even after 30 minutes, I could barely sit still. I passed the time by installing Ubuntu Linux in Parallels and paced the floor sipping water while it was doing it’s thing. Becky checked on me once to make sure I wasn’t dead from an aneurysm and went back up after I told her it was unecessary for both of us to loose sleep.

Long story short, I started feeling good enough to get back in bed around 4 AM. I slept until 8 and then took a nap during the day since I was still feeling a bit wiped out.

If that is what a migraine is, my heart and prayers to anyone who suffers. I’ll presume it was just some one-time thing (maybe a reaction to the sulfites from the wine I had that evening).