Benjamin soared at a recent birthday party. Later, I threw him (pics follow).
This place was great. During the school year it’s a preschool with a gymnastics bent, and in the off season its doors are open to anyone who shells out cash, and their guests. The kids can play in bounce houses, inflatable obstacle courses, and, of course, the pit of foam cubes.
Then the staff doles out the squirt guns. (click any pic to enlarge)
(Those reading my short story “They Keys Are In It” may go on to Part Nine. Warning: not everybody lives through this chapter.)
The month of Ubuntu has begun. I am typing this in the Ubuntu Linux distribution that I installed on Saturday, and so far things are going great, and they’re only getting better (to borrow a phrase).
Let me just say now that I’m not doing this because I’m unhappy with Windows XP. On the contrary, it has treated me well. The only problem I’ve had in years is the incompatibility between Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 and my CPU, but that’s not Windows’ fault. My XP system has been rock solid, stable, and responsive.
Every couple years or so I try Linux again to see whether it is something that 1) the average computer user can install and use, and 2) a pc geek father and busy blogger/writer can install and use with minimal fuss.
I never have been so pleased with the results.
Actual search term that led someone to this site: tips to manage 6th grade rock n roll band.
I can only imagine who typed that phrase into Google’s search form. A parent convinced that his or her child is destined to be a star, and wants to hitch a ride on the gravy train? A child hoping to help friends get gigs at local clubs?
The blog post that led the searcher here was a recent one about Benjamin’s newfound interest in playing guitar while making up his own songs. Sure, it might be a fleeting interest, but these are the things that help children develop into bigger children. That’s pretty much what all of us are, after all.
Whoa. Here is what we get in the Dallas metro area this time of year. Plenty more of this is expected in August. And look at those “low” temperatures. This isn’t meant as a competition. I’m sure there are folks reading this who have it worse than we do. I just happen to be taking pictures of our television and posting it, so I win. I mean, if it were a competition, which it isn’t.
I admit that the heat in my home state of Arkansas was worse because the humidity was much higher on a consistent basis. But, still, we could stand to break 100 degrees on fewer days.
I’m typing this in Wordpad on Windows 98, on a circa 1997 IBM Thinkpad 365xd (40MB RAM and 750MB hard drive). It’s a laptop leftover from one of my workplaces years ago, saved from the trash heap. What more do I need to type out my thoughts? I don’t even have a way to connect it to the Internet, so it’s easier to stay focused on my writing.
This laptop was manufactured before anyone blogged and before most now blogging had an Internet connection at home. Heck, it was made before most current laptop owners had ever used a laptop at all, and if they did it was provided by their employer.
And here I am using it to write words that will appear on a dynamic HTML page while my second PC downloads updates to Windows Vista. Funny how after about 10 minutes the progress bar still sits at 0 KB total, 0% complete. Sounds about right.
Oh, and I’m just about to install Ubuntu Linux on the second hard drive of the Vista PC. Back when this laptop was made, if I had said I was installing Linux, most Windows users would have said, “What’s a Linux?” Okay, so maybe that last one’s still true, but the percentage of clueless has decreased a lot. (the geeks out there might appreciate that I plan to do a “Month with Linux” wherein I do not use Windows at all at home)
In the same room is my wife, using her laptop to play Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” over and over while she learns the lyrics. It’s her favorite song, she said, so she bought it online. What would computer users from 1997 think if you told them that?
I donated a similar laptop to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a few years ago. I like to think that an aspiring novelist somewhere actually laid hands on it and wrote something worth reading.
Wow, the keys on this thing are amazing. They certainly don’t make them like this anymore. Did I just say that out loud?
Okay, now it’s time to post this to Al Gore’s Internet. Oh, wait, no connection. No problem. I’ll just transfer it using a USB drive. Wait, no USB port. Good thing I salvaged that external floppy drive along with the laptop.
Okay, so maybe this whole typing on an old computer is not so good.
(Note: Anybody reading “The Keys Are In It” may now proceed to Part Eight.)
Wednesday night Benjamin did something that I thought warranted sharing in the form of an audio file. When I asked him if he would like for me to share it, he said, “Yes.”
Now five years old, Ben says rock ‘n’ roll is his favorite type of music. He’s also a sucker for big band and pretty much anything his mother and I sing to him, but he requests rock ‘n’ roll more than any other. Sometimes, his specificity leaves a little to be desired.
In fact, earlier this week after I sang him a traditional lullaby, he asked for Shannon to come in and sing to him.
“What would you like me to sing?” Shannon said.
“Daughtry,” Ben replied.
And, God love her, she sang part of one of his slower tunes.
Here now is Ben performing two songs he composed all by himself, on a great little guitar we bought him for his birthday (nod to Charles for the consumer tips). First is an instrumental that features Ben on recorder and on guitar (at the same time), and then he does a little ditty with vocals and guitar. The second track contains both the soft and loud versions.
(I’m ad-free again. That failed experiment yielded exactly $5.92 in a month — hardly worth slowing down my blog and selling my soul. Google will owe me that for the rest of my life because they don’t pay until the balance reaches at least $100. Now my category “I Wasn’t Paid to Write This” won’t become a painful reminder of my dismal ad click numbers.)
I don’t rant much. Here goes.
I pick up our home phone and dial the number for the guy who’s supposed to start pouring our patio on Tuesday. In this ridiculously large metro area, it may or may not be long distance, and I throw caution to the wind and dial without a preceding “one.” Three rings later a recorded voice interrupts and tells me, “We’re sorry, you must first dial a ‘one’,” when placing a long distance call. She finishes with the familiar, “Please hang up and try your call again.”
I pick up my work phone and dial a number, this time with the “one.” As soon as I finish dialing, those three annoying, ascending notes play and a recorded voice interrupts to tell me that it is not neccessary to dial a “one” when calling that number. “Please hang up and try your call again,” she says.
In this age of modern telecommunications, could the phone company not set up a system that 1) can tell me before I’ve waited through three rings that I’ve screwed up, or 2) just ignore the “one” if I don’t need it and patch the call through? How about both?
Would this be difficult? Has nobody ever complained? Maybe it’s time.
Let’s keep millions of land-line users from falling victim to one-plus paralysis. Write to your congressional representative today. In fact, let’s ask the presidential candidates how they feel. With the two of them neck-in-neck in the latest polls, a firm position on this issue might just make the difference.
(Note: Those reading “The Keys Are In It” may jump into Part Seven. Those who have not started, give it a try.)
At Benjamin’s Fifth Birthday Party (with a Star Wars theme), the boys made up a role-playing game. In the middle Benjamin explains what’s happening and then uses his foot to emphasize one of his key talking points. Give it a moment to start after clicking the “play” button (there’s a download link, too, for those who have trouble with the streaming version).
(Note: Readers of “They Keys Are In It” may continue today with Part Six.)
Over the past week, between two bursts of working and hanging out in Memphis, I drove back to my hometown to visit family. The business trip had brought me close enough to family that it would have made little sense for me to stay in the hotel. There’s only so much fun a faithfully married guy can have on Beale Street without his wife.
I called Avis and asked what kind of rental car I would be getting, because my co-worker and I had got stuck with a Ford Explorer SUV. For one or two people, it’s just a good way to burn more gas. Although Chris and his girlfriend, D, were going with me, I knew we would be fine. Entire families make road trips with four doors and a trunk (well, and wheels).
“Please don’t give me an SUV,” I said to the Avis employee.
“Your reservation is for a mid-size. So you want me to make a note not to upgrade you?” he asked.
“If that’s what it takes to not get an SUV, then yes, no upgrade.”
What I got was an upgrade of a different sort.
Tonight is what we call pack night. I stuff dirty clothes into my suitcase lid’s inner pockets and tuck my portable electronics into safe crannies of my laptop bag.
Goodbye, Memphis. See you again sometime.
Clockwise from top left: Where we ate dinner on Tuesday night; a purse in a gift shop window; the Mon Chichi in Chris and D’s car; The Rum Boogie Cafe; a section of the wall that runs in front of Graceland.
