Delays, delays, delays

At work this week, then entire focus has been on getting some software out. Focus, focus, focus. I'm the last step in the process and I spent all week getting ready because the deadline HAD to be today.

Y'all see where this is going.

I got it yesterday afternoon. I packaged it up. Worked out a couple bugs. It was ready to go by 2:30 today. About that time, I start hearing rumblings from the cube next to mine - problems.

Yup, the commercial software we are packaging together with our custom software just spit out a couple more bugs. Release is put off. Who knows when it will actually be released.

Just to give a hint of the type of "quality" of this software, their documentation that goes out with the segment is all entitled "9.2 for Solaris". We are working with version 9.3 for Linux. Copy and Paste errors on primary documentation. Yeah. Gotta love all the quality checking that must have gone into that.

I'm too depressed, I think. Here are some good things:

Harvard Researchers See Exotic Force for the First Time Maybe some of you have heard of sub-atomic attractions, or Casimir force. When two parallel, non-conducting plates get REALLY close, some of the quantum fluctuations that exist in all of spacetime can't "fit" between the plates, and so don't happen there. However, the fluctuations are happening outsides the plates, and the extra radiative pressure of the higher level of fluctuation outside the plates pushes them together - a quantum "attraction" between things that are REALLY close.

Well, this is the opposite. A quantum repulsion. So far the quantum repulsion has been theory, but no more! This has some very sweet applications in nanotechnology, and might even move things along toward Casimir motors which generate usable energy from the until-now unusable energy in the quantum fluctuations of spacetime.

And for those of you who aren't science geeks, I'll stick in some Christian stuff. An excellent blog post from the Mars Hill church's blog: I Made God in My Image. Really, the only reason I stuck this in was that I've been irritated recently by a variety of bash-Mars-Hill church nuts. Finding a good statement of Christian life and practice is good. Posting it is something of a poke-in-the-eye to a lot of those fanatics. The pastor of the church, Mark Driscoll, isn't perfect and has a variety of flaws, but he's a public figure and draws all sorts of really asinine sniping from fellow Christians.

And then, for those of you who found absolutely nothing of interest in any of that, how about this: baby stuff. I was able to make it to C's recent pregnancy appointment and got to listen to baby Beta's heartbeat - from 156 to 164 bpm. I'm thinking we're having a girl if various reports of heartbeat rates are correct. Higher = girls, lower = boys. Sounded like a little steam train chugging along. I tried to listen in later just with my own ear up against C's tummy, but I could only year a couple of stomach gurglings and C's heartbeat.

Gold Digging Shrews

And I don't mean the small little digging animals.

Gold-Digging Shrews Whine About Banker Mates

I couldn't make this stuff up! This was my absolutely favorite quote:

Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. “One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35,” Ms. Davis said. “It’s not what I signed up for.”

Say huh?

I never knew my old area of Pittsburgh had quite so many spacetime warps! Looks like this one picked up some people from medieval Japan. Google's Street View pictures captured these two Japanese fighters in mortal combat before the spacetime warp closed again.

You can see the Samurai on Google Maps here.

I'm putting a small picture here just in case some of you don't have a fast enough connection (*cough*mom*cough*).

Climate Change Fraud?

While I am quite sure there is some sort of rationale that excuses this from falling under the legal definition of fraud, in purely practical terms, this is out and out fraud.



What is that shifting image? It's a comparison between the official GISS temperature for the United States as stated in 1999, and the official GISS numbers for the 2008 temperatures. There is a base line at the 0 mark, and the yearly average moves around that.

Look at the difference between the two for past years! Supposedly we're in such a horrible era of global warming (except that we've been flat/cooling for the last decade), but if you look at the numbers from 1999, we're just about average. That wasn't serving the official talking points, so the past numbers were adjusted down and recent numbers were adjusted upward to generate a warming trend.

This all goes under names like 'corrections' and stuff like that, I'm sure, but nonetheless it's fraud and lies.

(thanks to Watts Up With That for this)

Officially recinded

In my previous post I mentioned that C is starting to have just the barest hint of a bulge starting to show.

I officially take it back. I blame it on wifely peer pressure. I blame it on all the extra hormones floating around the house - they must have messed with my mind. There is no bulge. No matter how much C says she is feeling bloated, heavy, or whatever, it doesn't matter - she does not yet have a bulge.

Last night she measured herself for her mom to make some maternity clothes.

I'm sorry. It is absolutely impossible that a 28" waist contains a bulge. I don't care that last year she was at 26". It doesn't matter. 28" cannot be a bulge.

I'm at 31". When she gets to 31", I'll admit she has a bulge. Not before.

A bit of everything

No Jer this weekend, which was switched for having him two weekends in a row the previous two weekends. (R said she had something she wanted to do with him this weekend.) The silver lining to missing Jer was that I was able to judge at the debate tournament at PHC on Saturday!

The topic was whether or not the US government should significantly change its policy toward Cuba. Affirmative cases tended to focus on recent oil discoveries off the coast of Cuba, or just a general opening of trade and travel.

By an large, I tended to be in more agreement with the Affirmative side of things, though I think my decisions came down 50-50 between Affirmative and Negative. It was a long day since I started judging the first round at 8:00 and didn't finish judging my final round until 7:30. Poor C was working in the library that whole time, while I had several breaks in there.

In other news, Rick Warren wishes he could preach as well as Pastor Ray! (I'll provide the link to the podcast as soon as it gets posted.) Pastor Ray mentioned that he had hit a serious block when working on the sermon for this week, so he used the outline from one of Rick Warren's sermons, but adjusted some of the points. Proper citation and credit was given. Final result - Rick Warren needs to contact Ray to get a copy of the adjusted sermon. Seriously. I haven't heard this particular sermon by Warren since I've only listened to a small few of Warren's sermons, but I'm pretty safe saying Ray improved it with his adjustments.

In vaguely related news, InternetMonk put up a post about picking out the ONE TRUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH and depression. It had a great section to it:

Now, if I am convinced that one Denomination is right, my problem is going to be this: I still have to belong to a congregation, and a congregation is the place where the "essentials" are worked out in real life, not just in my head.
....
If I believe the Southern Baptist Convention is the church Jesus started... here’s this wonderful statement of faith, and a great missions network, and Al Mohler and those fine Calvinistic Ascol boys. But at my church... doctrine has been replaced with “How to be a great parent” sermons, the deacons have fired the last three pastors in less than 4 years, the music is a cross between an 80’s metal band made up of fat 45 year old men and the senior adult choir singing from the 1956 hymnal. We haven’t baptized a convert since 1993....
That’s your church. Oh sure, you can drive elsewhere and you can improve. (I drive two hours each way.) You can work for improvement. You can do all that stuff. But here’s my point: You chose the one true denomination, you still have to deal with your local church. It is the place you do or don’t hear the Bible. It’s the place you do or don’t start churches and do evangelism. It’s the place you are or are not taught the faith you read about on that great web site.

That's one of the things that perfectly describes why I attend a church which is part of a denomination that has several points of doctrine and practice which I disagree - this particular visible church body congregation of the Church universal is distilled awesomeness! There are issues with the people, with the church as a whole, and all that, but it is still a wonderful expression of good teaching and practiced love and fellowship.

And ... my lunch break is about over, so it's back to work.

As far as more important stuff goes - C and Beta are doing wonderfully well. C is looking especially fine with just the hint of a bulge starting to show. I've gotten Bro started on Necromunda (a small-group, tactical version of Warhammer 40K) along with NinjaSniper. I'm hoping to start a long game of risk today with Bro and his housemate - we'll drop in and make moves whenever we're around. We'll see how that works out.

Biblical Question

I just thought of something that I wish I could ask of someone, but I don't know of anyone with any particular expertise and the necessary POV, so I'm posting it here in the extremely long shot that it might somehow come to the notice of someone "out there".

How would an Old Earth Christian (of whatever persuasion - Theistic Evolution, Day Age, whatever) understand the Flood as described in the OT. I assume that the understanding would be that it is a localized flood and when it speaks of covering the "whole earth" it intends that to be understood locally, sort of like there were Jews from "every nation" at Pentecost. (obviously there weren't Jews from China or Japan)

That's straightforward enough, but there are further questions that I've never heard addressed.

Why would Noah have needed to build an Ark for animals if it were a localized flood of the generally Black Sea to Arabia area? Unless the Flood were truly global in nature, then it seems nonsensical for God to have Noah build an Ark to protect animal species which are in no danger of being wiped out.

Why would Noah have stayed on the Ark for over a year if the Flood were localized? Even a massive flood of a localized area wouldn't have lasted for an entire year to the extent that Noah couldn't have landed somewhere. Sure, smaller areas may have been unlivable for a year (valleys or low-lying areas that couldn't drain very quickly), but the Ark would have been very mobile and followed the prevailing flow of water which would have been toward drainage areas. Sure, the Ark may have gotten caught in a valley system or a newly-created lake, but that certainly wouldn't necessitate Noah and his family to stay on the Ark for an entire year-plus.

I realize it is a small hope that someone with the necessary views reads this post, but if anyone does, could you please comment? If you feel it needs a large essay to deal with and don't want to put it all in a comment, let me know and I'll send you my email address.

Home Depot credit card

Anyone out there have one? SS, does The Philosopher have one? I know he's a particularly dab hand at the fix-em-up projects.

I got my own project completed (with much help from Pastor Ray!) and made the requisite runs to Home Depot. I think it was only three main trips, but I think C made a run in once or twice for little things. Anyway, I am feeling particularly smug at the moment because of the Home Depot credit card.

On my first and biggest trip to get supplies, I asked if there were any discounts offered for signing up for a Home Depot credit card. There was a very nice one - 10% off just for applying! Something happened with the automated submission and it rejected me, asking for more information. The cashier was very nice and gave me the 10% discount anyway - somewhere around $30.

Next trip, same story with the application which was rejected, and I still got the discount - maybe $15-20.

Third trip, there was a manager there and instead of letting the automatic application fail she grabbed a paper application which she filled out for me and submitted from her office. That one went through and I got another 10% off - around $8.

Not bad for just applying for a credit card: $50 to $60 dollars saved!

I just received the card in the mail last night. There was absolutely nothing worthwhile about the benefits of the card. You could sign up for a 1-2% of monthly balance fee which would protect in case of a nasty accident and it would also give you 6 months of no interest on purchases over $299. Woo-whoo.

So I called up to cancel it. The lady was very nice and tried her darnedest to convince me to keep the card, individually going through the short list of "features" and after each one saying "So I'll go ahead and keep you signed up for this card," and I had to keep saying "No thanks, I still want to close it."

Finally she pulled out the final ace-in-the-hole - a 10% off coupon if I would keep the card open!

ROTFLOL!!!

The feeling of serendipity was too much and I let her keep me on as a customer. So far with this card, I've managed to now get 4 different instances of 10% off my purchases!

Jer's Prayers

Our church has a time when people can go to the front to ask for some prayer beyond the church's corporate prayer. Often enough this will turn into a larger group prayer, and occasionally the entire church winds up there, or near enough.

Anyway, Jeremiah has gone up for different reasons, but after a couple of "odd" prayer requests, I've started vetting them a bit. Yesterday's took the cake so far.

He leaned over and told me he wants to go pray.

"What do you want to pray about," I ask.

"I want to thank God that I have so many toys I don't even have time to clean them all up!"

LOL!

I'm developing pregnancy brain

I spent 20 minutes looking for some FCS stuff a co-worker and I had tarred up this morning to transfer over to a VM I'm making. I checked all over my computer. I checked all my favorite places on the network for transferring files. I even went through the main file servers that large projects use for collaboration and sharing.

Nothing.

I finally went over and asked him if he remembered where we put it.

His response:

"Didn't you put it on your thumbdrive?" (pointing to it hanging around my neck)

I thought C was the one who had all the baby hormones messing with her memory!

I've been busy

I've had a dozen different ways in mind to oh-so-cleverly announce things. Everything from writing a book to developing software to .... Oh, something else very clever. But in all the hubbub of Christmas traveling, moving, and home repair it somehow slipped my mind. I guess I've been busy.

Christmas was wonderful and spent in Kansas. Travel out was bleh, but coming back was interesting. (as in ancient Chinese curse sort of interesting). C did a much better job of writing about it than I could, so I'll just send you over to her blog.

She writes while being in Kansas.
She writes of the travel out there.
She writes of the trip back home.

You see, I write little, unimaginative sentences. She writes the good stuff.

Upon getting home I had work, but C had lots of time off, which was very, very nice for her. I'm very envious!

J was here for the New Year and we had a great time with lots of play and reading time. He has moved toward a more military-oriented set of interests from his police fascination, though police still play a big role in what he likes.

Clogging on New Year's Eve was a novelty for us since we are typically up in PA for the New Year. This year my family was heading out to AZ to visit extended family. So we got to go clogging at First Night here for the first time. I've heard lots of stories about adventures had at the First Night performances, and this one didn't disappoint, though it's a story for another time.

Then finally, for the last couple days I've been putting almost every spare moment into our bathroom. I had been under the impression that it didn't need to be done until January 16th. I found out on Jan 2nd that it needed to be done on the 6th. Oops! Thankfully my pastor has been a huge help.

So far I've ripped out the tile walls with J's help ("before" picture here). Then, with my pastor's guidance, I managed to install a GFI outlet (since it didn't have any outlets) and did all the plumbing piping work to remove the old bathtub and shower and put in piping for a new one.

Then the cement board went up, followed by the drywall and lots of drywall compound. Finally the tub surround with lots of adhesives and caulk. Now it's mostly just left to clean up. I still need to caulk a couple seams and trim the new tub shell to the desired height. It will then be to a fully usable state. Then it will need paint on the drywall sections, but at least it is in a usable state if not completed.

Then it's on to several toilet repairs (one is leaking and another isn't filling) in the new house. Then, if I'm feeling generous (I'm most definitely NOT at the moment) I could fix the toilet in the old house - it's leaking.

So now, hopefully you've completely forgotten the beginning where I said I wanted to announce things. I just gave a big list of reasons why it hasn't been announced yet. I've been busy. Without further ado ....

We're having a baby!!!