Monthly Archives: May 2006

Portable browsers

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I’ve known about portable browsers — the ones that can be installed on a USB drive, such as Firefox — for a few years. But I never really thought much about using them myself, that is, until I figured out how useful they are in situations where I do not or cannot have administrator privileges on my PC.

Last week I decided to give the portable version of Firefox a try. Then I also decided to see if someone had come up with a portable version of my favorite browser, Flock. Fortunately, someone has already thought of this. I installed the portable versions of Firefox and Flock on my USB drive and voila, I was freed from the oppressive and limiting strangehold of Internet Explorer! (I’m exaggerating a little of course, but I do hate IE.)

I know that there are limitations to their use but for now, I am really pleased with how the portable versions of these browsers work. Both Firefox and Flock run quite smoothly on my USB drive. I have noticed no degradation of load time or anything like that.

On a slight tangent…I am somewhat surprised that there hasn’t been more discussion among techie librarian folks about Flock. I think it’s a great tool, one that is well suited for the kinds of things that I like to do, such as blogging, photo sharing, sharing of bookmarks, etc. Almost all of these features are available in Firefox, too, but they are more nicely integrated in a single package with Flock. The major limitation I find with Flock is the lack of extensions that I find indispensable, including FlashBlock, TinyURL Creator, Adblock Filter Set Updater, and others.

Long time without writing

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It’s been a long time since I last wrote.  Honestly I have felt some burnout with too many things happening in my personal and professional lives. 

On the home front, we’ve been focused on completing the purchase of a house.  Wednesday we had the formal home inspection and discovered some things that needed to be fixed, but nothing major.  The lawyers will hopefully sign off on the contract this coming Tuesday.  The only thing left after that, I think, is for the underwriting portion of our loan.  Michele, in particular, is preoccupied with figuring out what kind of color scheme we should use in the new house, as well as with other details such as window coverings.  We’ve never owned a new house before and having a tabula rasa can be a bit intimidating.  To help us garner ideas for decorating, we’ve visited a few big home stores including Expo and The Great Indoors.

Last night we had more excitement than we anticipated.  The little ones were roughhousing as usual just before their bedtime when Tristan grabbed Brinley’s left arm and pulled it hard.  She screamed and cried for over an hour and was obviously in a lot of pain.  She couldn’t or wouldn’t move her left arm.  The slightest movement caused her to cry even more.  I took her to the emergency room and she had several X-rays to see if she might have a broken wrist.  Fortunately she didn’t.  The doctor figured out that she had something commonly known as nursemaid’s elbow, which basically means that her arm had been dislocated at the elbow.  He made a quick adjustment on her arm and everything clicked back into place.  It happened so fast that I could hardly believe what he had done.  Within five minutes she was almost back to normal.

A new house

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Other%20Side%20of%20House

Thursday evening, Michele and I signed the papers necessary for purchasing a new house. This photo shows the front of the house. (More photos of the exterior and interior are available here.) It has four bedrooms and two full bathrooms and has about 2,000 sq. ft. of living space. All appliances are brand new and come with the house, which was built late last year. It is in a nice community within a short distance from a commuter rail station that I can use to commute to and from work. The schools seem to be quite good, which is really important for us since Keegan enters high school in the fall, and Tristan starts kindergarten. We couldn’t be happier with how things have worked out, and we just hope and pray that all of the necessary details will work out satisfactorily. The whole process from here on to the closing is in the hands of our lender, our real estate agent, and our lawyer. Of course, God’s hand is over it all. We hope to take possession of the house in about a month’s time. The kids are as thrilled as we are and already ask us when we will live in our new house.

Barbaro breaks a leg

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All of my life I’ve had a love affair with thoroughbred horses. I was too little when he was in his prime to really remember him, but I became fascinated with thoroughbred racing because of Secretariat, who remains my favorite horse of all time. When I was about 10 years old, my best friend at the time wanted to be a horse trainer when he grew up. Of course it helped that his family owned a modest racing stable. My ambition was to be a jockey. Well, his dream came true, but mine was never realized because I quickly grew too big. From what I hear, he is a very successful trainer and is well regarded in the horse racing business. Instead of becoming a jockey, I became a librarian. (Actually, no regrets, except that I have always wanted to be able to own a horse.)

I try to keep up with the Triple Crown races each year. I missed seeing Barbaro win the Kentucky Derby, and I also missed the Preakness yesterday. However, I was horrified to read late last night about Barbaro’s tragic accident that resulted in him severely breaking his right hind leg. I can’t imagine how he can survive this. His jockey was in tears, as were many other people who looked on from the grandstand in shock and distress. Other than an injury to a jockey, which happens more than people might think, a severe injury to a horse like this is one of the most tragic things that can happen in horse racing. It is a stark reminder that horse racing is a dangerous sport. I am glad I missed seeing the whole thing happen on TV.

Site was hacked

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Late last night I discovered that this site had been successfully hacked. Some idiot was able to log into my account and overwrote my WordPress installation. But, not much harm done, frankly, because with a little bit of effort and because I frequently back up the content, I was able to restore FML pretty easily. Isn’t the timing of the hack a bit “interesting”?! Sigh. Unfortunately there are a lot of juvenile folks out there.

One thing I have noticed is that if you subscribe to this blog via an aggregator such as Bloglines, you may want or need to resubscribe.

A welcome reprieve

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Today was my last day at Endeavor. It’s a welcome reprieve! I had been wondering what could occupy my time ’til my original end date (the 17th). Now, I don’t have that worry and it’s like a big load has been taken away. I get to spend needed time on preparing for my upcoming class, plus Michele and I now have the time we need to look for (and hopefully buy) the right house in the right area. On top of all of that, we now have time to do some special, fun things as a family, sort of like a mini-vacation, before I start my new job.

There are many nice people at Endeavor for whom it was sad to say goodbye. But we’ll likely keep in touch and bump into one another at some future EndUser.

Now, it’s time to get the little ones to bed.

Top ten weirdest TV shows for children

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I laughed ’til I cried when I stumbled across a blog posting about one person’s picks for the top ten weirdest TV shows for children (see Fireflies in the Cloud: The Top Ten Weirdest, Creepiest, Freakiest Children’s Television Shows). As a parent of three little kids (and one big one) who is forced to watch more than my fair share of such shows in order to keep the natives from getting restless, I can really relate to what this person writes (sans some crude language). It is really funny to read that someone else thinks “The Doodlebops” is downright dangerous and freaky, or that “Boobah” is, well, it truly scares me to watch.

The serious point in all of this, though, is that it really pays to monitor what kids are watching on TV. Generally we favor shows on Sprout or PBS Kids, but even there, some weird things creep into shows for children. The main benefit from watching those channels rather than, say, Nicktoons or Disney, is that they don’t bombard you with absolutely awful “kid-oriented” commercials, which when watched, seem like an all out assault on the senses. I hate them and I especially hate the reaction such commercials get from our children, such as, “Oh cool! Dad, can I have that?!” (now, repeat that statement a bazillion times and you get the idea).

If I had my choice, there would be at most an hour of TV watching per day in our house. Ok, maybe I should be less ambitious. In that case my goal is to completely ban any watching of the Disney Channel. I despise the Disney Channel and most everything else that is Disney-related.

Fascinated with flying

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I’ve long been fascinated with passenger jets and the whole flying experience, so it was with keen interest that I’ve read as much as possible about the decades-long knock-’em-drag-out fight between Airbus and Boeing over who will truly dominate the skies. I have to admit to being partial to Boeing. Sort of like rooting for the home team, even if, at times, they are sleazy and don’t deserve to win. When I first read about the upcoming so-called “super jumbo” jet, the A350, being built by Airbus, I honestly thought that the war was over and that Airbus had won. It is an amazing machine and I can’t wait to see it and perhaps fly in it some day.

However I have been really intrigued by Boeing’s latest offering, the 787 Dreamliner, and note that it is already unbelievably successful in terms of sales, even though it won’t go into service until 2008 at the earliest. (I think the A350 goes into service in 2007.) They aren’t really competitors in terms of the markets they serve but they represent the two biggest weapons in each camp, and they offer completely different views of how the industry will change in the next 10-20 years. Today’s article in the New York Times (Boeing Bets the House on Its 787 Dreamliner – New York Times) is an excellent article that discusses Boeing’s big gamble on the 787. This and other recent news about the 787 and the very positive reaction it is receiving from airlines has convinced me that the “war” is certainly not over. Like the A350, I can’t wait to see my first 787 fly overhead a couple of years from now, much less have a chance to fly in one. My current favorite jet in which to fly is the 777, which is a great plane, I think.

As an aside, one of the things I like most about where I currently work is that Endeavor’s headquarters are literally next door to O’Hare Airport here in Chicago. Passenger jets of all types and from all over the world fly over the building at close range, offering me the chance to take a look at them and try to identify what kind of jets they are and from which airlines. I know, it sounds a bit childish, but who cares. I think it’s a fun and innocent, if quirky, pasttime.