Category: Doug

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This ’n That

Just a few quick bullet items:

  • President Bush had some great lines in his speech last night. Here are my two favorites:
  • “The other party’s nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions. They’re for tax cuts and against them. They’re for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They’re for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They’re in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”
  • “They now agree that the world is better off with Saddam out of power. They just didn't support removing Saddam from power. Maybe they were hoping he would lose the next Iraqi election.”
  • Last night I took Isaac and David sledding at Roby Park in Nashua. David has become quite the daredevil, which was surprising, because the last time we went sledding, he pretty much didn’t like the big slopes at all. (In fact, he used to beg to go to a nearby school for sledding that was about as thrilling as watching golf.) The slope at the park was mostly ice, so we got some great speed, and proved without a doubt that the best way to sled is to use David or Isaac’s smaller sled in front of mine, allowing me to hold onto the back of theirs and providing excellent steering.
  • Earth to the Palestinians: Want to get anything you want? Stop blowing up innocent people. One isn’t exactly going to garner sympathy by creating busload after busload of noncombatants killed by suicide bombers.
  • My team leader, Brian Cortez, gave us a milk crate full of model rockets and accessories. We will be repairing some of his old models (an X-16 looks particularly cool), and hope to have him present for its re-launch after so many years.
  • At work, I’ve been learning and working with the Jakarta Struts framework, which has been both challenging and fun. The only gripe is the number of “silent failures” that occur (a code-500 server-side error with absolutely nothing in a log file is not exactly easy to diagnose and debug).
  • The new commute is awesome. It takes me only about 45 minutes to take the kids to school and then get to the office in the morning, and I can get home in as little as 20 minutes. Even with slightly longer work hours due to the new project, family time has improved dramatically.
  • The new house, with the entire first-floor in an open layout, is also very good for family interaction and activities. I also have to thank Nichelle for her graciousness in allowing the Lego collection to stay out for days at a time.
  • Speaking of Lego, the new family room has enough room to spread out and build, and we are developing the habit of spending Saturday mornings building with Lego. It’s been great, although I’m still missing one box of miscellaneous Lego that got shuffled in the move.
  • Speaking of Lego, I have to commend them on their customer service. I e-mailed them a suggestion on improving the Lunar Lander set, by using gold visors for the astronauts (instead of the clear ones provided), and they sent me six of the gold visors for free.
  • Moving out of state costs money! (God has provided all that we need, but we have spent quite a bit on car registrations, new licenses, new insurance, new cell phone services, etc.) It seems one has to spend money to save money. (Our car insurance will drop about $125 to $150 per month. Our new cell phone plan will save us up to $100 per month. Gasoline savings will amount to about $100 per month. School tuition is cheaper. Now, if I could just get out of donating 5% of my income to the State of Massachusetts … but the law on that isn’t likely to change!
     
  • The Route 3 widening is a few months behind the schedule that had been listed on their FAQ until a few weeks ago. They are now promising a “substantial completion” by May of 2004, instead of February. Still, that is not very far off.
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    Computer Problems

    Last night Jedi Academy started acting funny. When playing a sound, the sound would start repeating, and the screen would freeze. Usually, after a few seconds, this would correct itself, but a couple of times, the graphics would get distorted (even after exiting the game), and only a reboot would fix them.

    As time went by, this got worse and worse. Eventually I ran through several of our games, and all of them that used advanced 3D graphics had the same problem. Some would freeze and stutter often (Dungeon Seige), a few would show the graphics problem right away (Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast; Star Trek Voyager Elite Force), and a few would work for a while (Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy).

    In addition to testing, I reinstalled the video drivers, sound drivers, and DirectX. The operating system is behaving just fine, and we're up-to-date on virus definitions and doing nightly scans. The problem seems to occur only with stuff that uses high-end 3D rendering, but isn’t confined merely to openGL, as far as I can tell. The DirectX diagnostics all ran perfectly.

    Other than losing the ability to play our favorite games on that machine, this has triggered abnormally high levels of anxiety for me.

    I suspect our video card has developed a problem, but am welcome to alternative suggestions.

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    Lessons in Rocketeering

    [doug]This should also satisfy those of you who want pictures of our new house.(Well, not really, but there’s a picture of part of one room.) If you are planning to sell your house, then Sell your house quickly with Bonnie Buys Houses Fast which will help you in selling your property quickly and at good rates.

    Phil Luchon gave “The Boys” (which includes me) an Estes complete model rocket kit for Christmas. We got permission from Pastor Miller to use the church ball field for launching (try that in Brockton!), and got two flights up on Saturday. The first photo above shows David when it was his turn to launch. John missed out until the next day due to what I thought was bad batteries, but turned out to be a dud engine. So, I bought fresh batteries, and some extra rocket engines, and we planned to have another try at it on Sunday.

    Sunday included the regular church service, a pot luck feast (dinner is too small a term for it), and an early afternoon service. We had a guest speaker, a pastor from Arkansas who is being interviewed to become principal for the Christian School. There was a lot of teasing about the weather and his accent—Pastor Miller has a great sense of humor, and both services were a lot of fun, while being spiritually fulfilling as well. Bryan Harrington may be interested to learn that his Temperature Conversion Chart got read from the pulpit.

    After the afternoon service, we went back out to launch the rocket again. After discovering that the engine, not the ignitor or batteries were to blame, John got as near flawless a launch off as we’d seen so far. Then I decided to put in a size B engine….

    The flight was spectacular. The B engine took off with enough power to send the rocket at least a couple of hundred feet into the air (we haven’t done the triganometry on any of our flights yet), leaving us cheering, “Wow!” and gazing awestruck at the power demonstrated by the rocket’s flight. (The blast was hot enough to mis-shape the steel splash plate where the engine fired.)

    Unfortunately, the chute deployed at an altitude high enough to carry the rocket about 100 feet downwind, just enough to get tangled in the top of a tree at the edge of the church property. Despite John’s bravery (see the second image above), he couldn’t get a decent grip on the branch it was on, so the nose cone and parachute are still up in the tree, until we return with some rope or a saw. Thankfully, we shook the body of the rocket (which is not weather-resistant) loose, and that is safely at home.

    That evening the church hosted a SuperBowl get-together, at which I dropped John off, while David, Isaac, and I built with Lego. (See the third photo above.) You can see that our new family room has more than enough space to spread the Lego boxes out while we build. The pinball machine and pellet stove are in the background, as are sundry other items that have yet to be unpacked. Nichelle is going to kill me when she sees which photo I’ve posted, but the fun is worth it.

    While I was at it, I put up a newer photo of Naomi, for her many fans.

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    Where’s my Snow?

    I woke up before my alarm this morning, looked out the window and saw no new snow. Overnight, the weather forecast, which had disappointingly dropped from “snow, heavy at times,” to “3 to 8 inches of total accumulation,” had changed to, “snow showers, possible accumulation of 1 inch.”

    Last year Nashua got mountains of snow. This year it’s just unusually cold. But the winter is not over yet.

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    In Yesterday’s Episode, Doug Learned to Make Sure the Ashes in the Pellet Stove Have Truly Cooled Off Before Vacuuming Them

    [doug]We have a pellet stove, which is a nifty, attractive, low-mess way to heat/supplement the heat in our new house. In fact, Nichelle is getting spoiled by it, as it is easy to bring the house up to about 75 degrees, so when it gets down to our usual 68 degress, she complains about it being too cold.

    Last night, it was time to clean out the ashes, before restarting the stove, as they were starting to interfere with combustion. So, I put my hand over the ashes, found out they were cool, even stuck my hand in to make sure.

    Unfortunately, I wasn’t careful enough. Nichelle yelled and I turned around to see smoke pouring from the back of the vacuum cleaner, quickly filling up the house.

    I’d sucked up one ember that just hot enough to, under the increased air flow, set fire to the vacuum cleaner bag and its contents.

    The vacuum and house are unharmed (except for a slight smell of smoke), but I’m very embarrassed.

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    One of Those Days

    I was on my way to Nashua to drop off the check for our insurance binder (only $368), when Nichelle called.

    She explained that there was a problem, and that I should call our agent

    So, I spoke with our agent, and it seems that, despite being given a commitment letter, Fleet is demanding $7,000 more from our buyers, due to, among other things, their insurance costing more than they expected.

    They want us to come up with $3,000 of that. And I’m fresh out of $1,000s.

    Further details as I have them.

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    “Ordinary Greatness”—Remembering My Father

    This morning my mother called to tell us that my father, Paul John Wilcox, Jr., passed on to be with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, around midnight last night.

    Dad was 80 years old, and suffered from both emphysema and congestive heart failure. Although his health had been slowly declining for the past few years, with some ups and downs, a couple of weeks ago he took a sudden and significant turn for the worse.

    My father was a good man—not the kind of man to garner fame or wealth—but a good man along the way everyone thinks of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.

    Thanks to their local hospice organization, Dad was able to spend his last days at home, with Mom nearby, and with many friends able to visit. In his last lucid moments (maybe a week ago), he remarked that he was glad to be at home, rather than in a hospital.

    Dad has shown remarkable grace through all this, and it was always encouraging to talk with him. His decline in health was probably harder on Mom than on him.

    Dad knew his destination was Heaven—not because he was a good man, because no one is good enough to meet God’s standard (this is repeated throughout the Old and New Testaments)—but through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Redeemer. (If you’re interested in learning more about why we believe this, this Web site has a very well-documented, Scriptural presentation of the Gospel which is fundamental to our beliefs.)

    For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
    —John 3:16

    In the end, Dad was at peace, and completely ready to go to his eternal home.

    Even though we will join him someday, we miss him greatly, and today has been a very sad parting. Other than knowing Dad is in Heaven, I take consolation that Dad was able to die at home, lived a full and mostly healthy life, knew how much he was loved, that all of us (I have four sisters and two brothers) were able to see him within the past year, and that my last (and recent) words spoken to him were, “I love you, Dad.”

    I realize I haven’t elaborated on my topic much at all; I will share more of my memories and details of Dad’s life later. Right now I’m very tired.

    Please feel free to post your own comments.

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    Jakarta Struts Training

    Today through Wednesday (and possibly Thurdsday) Kronos is locking me (along with several others) up in training. This is my first official training since starting with Kronos, and I'm a little nervous, given I'm not very well trained in Java. We shall see.

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    The Spoiling Begins

     

    Okay, Nichelle is making me post this, to illustrate just how big a change having a daugher can make. Before Naomi, you wouldn’t catch me near “girl toys,” or clothing of any kind. Then, with Naomi on the way, something happened to my mental processes. First was the dress I bought in México. Then came the Barbie. I … I don’t know what has come over me, although co-worker Judy Hirsch told me this would happen.

    The remaining issue is which of the geekwear t-shirts/creepers to purchase. I can’t decide amongst “Newbie,” “TCP/IP,” and “Geek in Training.” Which would you pick?

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    Our Trip to Boston’s Museum of Science

    On Friday, October 3, I Took Isaac and David, and Isaac's best friend Nda (En-dah) (John opted out) to the Museum of Science on Friday (I took a half day off, and picked Isaac up from school, and we went by subway). We had a great time. The digital camera I bought lets me get low-light and other kinds of photos I could never capture before.

    It’s funny, because you never know what will really interest the kids. David now wants to go back (he asks approximately every day now). For some reason a 2300-year-old mummy in the life sciences section fascinated him. Later, he was a little mad that they put a sign up asking people not to sit in or stand in the tyrannosaur footprint.

    One very cool new exhibit was sponsored by Microsoft – it's a mock-up of the “cockpit” of the Wright Flyer, linked to a huge projection screen and M$ Flight Simulator 2004. The Wright Flyer was very difficult to fly – not so bad climbing and leveling off (although it would stall very easily), but banking (by weight-shifting) was usually disastrous for us. Friday afternoons and evenings the museum is mostly empty, so we all had plenty of chances to try it.