May 2008 Archives

For my birthday this year Trina had given me a Nikon D300 camera. Since then I have been in digital camera heaven. I have been interested in photography since high school and have owned several cameras during my life. Many of these are chronicled in the About page on my Photo Blog. When I initially suggested that I wanted a Nikon D300 camera Trina was less than enthusiastic. Part of the reason for her apprehension is that I already owned 3 digital SLR cameras. She could not understand why in the world I would need another one especially since I had stated on several occasions that the Nikon D200 I owned was probably the most perfect camera I had ever used. This was definitely a mistake on my part. Not that the D200 is not a great camera; just that I should never let my wife hear that I am content with anything otherwise it makes my life miserable trying to justify why I need a new toy.

I remember as a kid when my grandparents would come over to our house. I would be playing with some sort of technology gadget. My grandfather would sit down and begin questioning me on what the device was and what its capabilities were. I would explain the details as best as I understood them and we would talk about the various uses would be for the device. This inevitably would lead to my grandfather uttering a sentence that began with, "Back in my day..." followed by a dissertation of what society and more importantly technology was like when he was my age. I remember snickering whenever he started thinking there is absolutely no way I am ever going to do that. First off I never thought nor do I still think that the "good old days" were all that good. I am a technologist and an avid collector of gadgets. I am an early adopter and hence get involved with the technology before it is quite ready for primetime. Sometimes this is good and other times it can be quite expensive.

Now that Mother's Day is over it is time to start focusing on the important holidays like Father's Day. I don't mean that mothers don't deserve their own holiday I am all for it when a holiday is accompanied by cake. But Mother's Day is such a girly holiday. It's just not something guys can get their arms around. I mean Mother's Day even messes up baseball when players start using pink bats. Who could take anyone seriously when they are swinging a pink bat? Newspaper ads start to feature cool things like barbeque grills, power tools, and beer goes on sale. Compare that to Mother's Day when the ads are filled with dresses, picture frames, and floral arrangements. No, Father's Day definitely kicks butt on Mother's Day. At least that is what I thought until this morning.

Every day is an adventure around our house. The family is never quite sure what to expect. I tend to think of this as a positive thing as it gives Trina and the kids an opportunity to adapt as their environment changes. They seem to be a little less enthusiastic about the constant changes. One of the primary complaints is that nothing is ever the same around our house. It is always in a state of flux. I took that as a compliment but I was assured it was not meant to be one. On more than one occasion I have been told that just once the family would like to have a normal day. What fun is that? No, if I have my way there will never be a "normal day".

When my daughter Tiffany began her freshman year in high school I would have bet money that she would never make it to graduation. It's not that Tiffany is not a good student; it is just that at the time she didn't really seem all that interested in being a high school graduate. Homework was the farthest thing from her mind and grades were not something she necessarily cared about. It was one of those things that as a parent make you lay awake at night worrying about. Thankfully though Tiffany's attitude changed and she matured both physically and educationally. She outgrew the pain of taking Spanish and German. She survived the math classes that seemed destined to trip her up. She even miraculously passed the AIMS test signifying that she had retained what she was being taught. Then to top things off she actually took the SAT and her scores coupled with her grades she was accepted into college all before the end of her senior year. It's the kind of thing that makes you believe that there is a power beyond the comprehension of man.

"Would you mind stopping at the store on your way to work and picking something up for me?" Never has one sentence contained such a veiled attempt. It seemed like a fairly innocent request. After all, Trina does so much for me how could I possibly decline when she asks me to do something? I have no answer to that last question but after today I can tell you that I do plan to do some research to find an appropriate way to say no if she ever asks me to stop at a store again. Before getting this request it was a pretty run-of-the-mill Wednesday. The week would soon be half over and with everything we have going on today appeared to be the calm before the storm. I just didn't realize how close the storm was.

"There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true." Never have the words of Winston Churchill rung more true. For the past 11 months I have been trying to come up with a good justification for replacing my cell phone. I have a Motorola Razr that I have had since they first came on the market. My service provider is Verizon and despite what that squirrelly guy on the commercial thinks, I really can't hear him. For as long as I can remember I have had poor cellular service especially at our house. It is not as though I live on a remote mountain somewhere in Tibet. I am pretty much in the middle of a city of over 100,000 and yet from a cell tower perspective I may as well be on the planet Neptune. Neptune is still a planet isn't it? Ever since the whole Pluto fiasco I just don't know any more.

Time is an interesting animal that refuses to be domesticated. I have sort of a love hate relationship with time. From a scientific perspective I am fascinated by the whole concept of time. It is an invention to allow man to measure the inconceivable. For whatever reason as a species we are consumed by the idea that we must measure and compare one instance of existence to another. Some people choose to use these measurements to place value comparisons on their evolution. Others hope to mark off each moment as a sign that they were here. It is as though they are afraid that without somehow marking it down their lives would hold no value. Time follows us everywhere we go and we cannot escape it. Even after we have passed beyond the boundaries of this mortal life we are still measured by time. Visit any cemetery and look at the headstones. The majority of these are filled with the concept of time. These carved stones mark the final resting place of a human beings earthly vessel. Does the stone give us any indication of the type of life these people lived? Instead all we know of their journey through this world is their arrival and departure time.

For as long as I can remember I have only slept 3-4 hours a night max. A lot of times it is even less than that. For whatever reason I just cannot sleep any longer than that. This means that I am up between 20 and 21 hours a day. So while everyone in the house sleeps, I am up doing something. It drives Trina crazy since she never knows what she is going to wake up to. One night I couldn't find some spice in the cupboard so when Trina got up I had completely rearranged the spice cupboard. She is still trying to find stuff from that episode. In most cases my nights are filled with fairly normal activities such as programming, writing, or research. That of course leads it its own set of strange things like the night that I decided to rewire the house for networking. There is nothing quite like seeing the look on your wife's face when she comes down to find holes in her walls and wire strewn across what was a clean house when she went to bed 8 hours ago. I thought I should have gotten credit for drilling holes in the walls without waking everyone up but obviously that didn't count for as many points as I thought it should. Lately I have been trying to limit my destruction unless explicitly given permission before Trina goes to bed. I had to put that last part in since Trina says it doesn't count if I go into the bedroom at 4 AM and ask her questions or get her approval since she will never remember that by morning.

I looked at the calendar today and realized it was time to flip the page. It's funny, as I have started to get older I look at the calendar with equal parts of amazement and disdain. Every day that goes by reminds me of all the things I had wanted to get done but never seemed to find the time. This leads down the typical range of emotions. First is astonishment when I realize that the calendar has moved forward. You would think that after all these years I would realize that time continues to march forward regardless of whether I choose to acknowledge it or not. Yet every day I still find myself shocked to see another day has passed. Once I get over the initial emotion I usually get frustrated. I have a list of things I wanted to get accomplished and I broke that list down into days and now I find that one day is missing and it doesn't seem like any of the activities I had listed for this now missing day had the decency to get lost with the day. Activities are kind of like rats on a sinking ship. When they see a calendar day slowly taking on water soon to be gone from existence; they immediately jump to the next day hoping to save their pathetic selves.