Welcome to the Wilcox Family weB LOG, your source for the latest Wilcox news, anecdotes, and rants; and, as Jack Benny quipped on his first radio show (March 29, 1932), “There will be a slight pause while you say, ‘Who cares?’â€â€
For devotees, [today is the anniversary] of an event in Copenhagen that transformed toys and revolutionized childhood itself.
It was at 1:58 p.m. on January 28, 1958, that then-Lego head Godtfred Kirk Christiansen filed a patent for the iconic plastic brick with its stud-and-hole design. Since then, the company has made a staggering 400 billion Lego elements, or 62 bricks for every person on the planet. And if stacked on top of one another, the pieces would form 10 towers reaching all the way from the Earth to the Moon.
This Lego Logo is composed entirely of Minifigures.
(Image credit Lee LeFever, Creative Commons License.)
Theories abound about how he finances and operates his North Pole operation.
A number of people believe Santa is a Communist. Others believe that Santa’s elves are slave laborers being exploited by the big red taskmaster.
Neither of these theories stands up to examination. The suggestion of Communism is just silly. We know from certain documentaries that Santa’s operation runs all year; that the elves who manufacture the toys are unionized and follow an apprenticeship-to-mastery program. It seems that the elves are humanoid enough to expect reasonable compensation for their work. Further, even if the elves were enslaved, vast quantities of materials and significant manufacturing infrastructure would need to be paid for. It is estimated that the retail value of Santa’s products is over $23 billion in the U.S. alone.
So how does Santa finance this massive operation?
Let’s take a look at two things we know about Santa’s abilities: (1) He can travel virtually instantaneously (650 miles per second) anywhere in the world; (2) he can enter any building, no matter how secure, with complete impunity.
Given these abilities, isn’t it more reasonable to conclude that Santa is, indeed, using them all year? He needs a vast quantity of cash to pay the elves, purchase raw materials, cover utilities, finance his public relations and legal departments, and upgrade manufacturing capabilities each year. Bearer bonds, gold bullion, gems, and good old Greenbacks and Euros are easily gathered by one with his abilities.
In a vicious cycle, our dear Santa “Sticky Fingers” Claus spends the year financing his operation via ill-gotten gains. Psychologically, this has to take its toll—Santa is certainly not a psychopathic personality, but he each December 25 he can assuage his guilt by delivering free toys and materialistic joy the world over.
Tangential factors further support this theory. We note that these toy deliveries appear to be unequally distributed throughout the planet, with the children of First World countries receiving far more than their fair share. Would it not be reasonable for Santa to compensate the children in wealthier countries more than elsewhere in regard to the unequal drain he would have had on their particular, more wealthy, economies?
And think about the infamous “naughty list.” Is there any evidence for anyone, no matter how naughty, ever being denied a gift from Santa? Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Kenneth Lay, Michael Jackson, Kim Jong Il, or the children for whom the “Parents, there is no candy in this aisle,” supermarket program was developed … Santa never delivers the threatened coal.
Like most people given super powers, Santa could not resist the temptation to use them for doing wrong. In time, the need to compensate for that wrongdoing led to the gift distribution system we enjoy today. And, the day after Christmas, the cycle begins again.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus … and he’s a thief.
The one who mothered my children
The one who was my only lover
The one who laughed at my jokes
The one who tolerated my inability to get my socks into the hamper right-side out
The one whose smile always brightened my day
The one who cut my hair
The one who prepared my meals
The one who shared my poverty
The one who shared my wealth
The one whom I have laughed with
The one whom I have cried with
The one whose illness tested my faith, showing me that it was okay to let God know I was really angry with Him
The one who received all my love notes
The one whose every success I applauded
The one who left clumps of hair everywhere in the house
The one safe driver in the family
The one who encouraged me when I did crazy things like ride my bike in the snow
The one who I could eat ice cream with
The one who made a million double standards
The one who was my water-fight and snowball target
The one who was my Snugglebunny
The one with whom I have shared a Caribbean sunset
The one who made me change my clothes when they do not match
The one woman I have ever kissed
The one who kicks my butt as my personal trainer
The one with whom I can watch chick-flicks
The one who supported me when my brain would not work right and I did not know what to do
The one who taught me how to exercise
The one who couldn’t stay awake for reading Starship Troopers
The one for whom I have prayed
The one who tolerated and tried to understand my anxieties
The one who was my Queen of Sarcasm
The one who made me not afraid to walk down dark alleys
The one who always froze me with her feet in bed in the winter
The one who prayed for me when I most needed it
The one who recognized all my Star Wars quotations
The one for whom I have bought flowers
The one who trusted me with her secrets
The one who always beat me to the bathroom
The one who my family liked better than they liked me
The one for whom I asked God
The one who pampered me when I was sick
The one whose drinks I could sip and then make “that face”
The one for whom I always thanked God
The one by whom I defined the word beautiful
The one who got me to eat mostly healthily
The one whom I did not see Hyannis with on our honeymoon
The one whose adventure dreams I always envied
The one with whom I could talk through any decision
The one who let me decorate with Lego
The one who always ignored my advice about computing
The one who has made my vacations worth taking
The one who realized immediately that we needed to live closer to work
The one who kept our children safe when I was not cautious enough to do so
The one whose laugh always made me smile
The one who made me think “Wow!” the first time I saw her
The one who was my friend for years
The one whose voice was the most beautiful one in the world to me
The one whose body I always longed to touch
The one for whom I lived
The one whom I love.
Nichelle is moving out today, pursuant to her intent to divorce me. I wrote this a couple of months ago, after a conversation we’d had. Nichelle’s decision was unilateral, and has been the most heartbreaking thing I have ever experienced, but there’s nothing I can do to prevent it.
Goodbye, my darling. Know that I love you, unconditionally and unceasingly.
This is the rope-climbing robot myself and ASD student Joe Cole worked on, as a competitor in the “Robolympics” program I developed after Robot Sumo was done this year.
We were hoping to modify the base to allow it to compete in robot drag racing, but there simply wasn’t enough time.
Ours was the only team to successfully complete a robot that would climb the rope, although two other teams came close. There’s a red Lego Astromech droid on top of a pole that triggers a touch sensor to reverse the robot (usually) when it gets to the top of the rope. If I’d had more time, I’d have replaced that with the ultrasonic distance sensor.
Adam White’s stripped-down speed demon completely dominated the robot drag racing event. No one stood a chance against him.
Saturday Nichelle competed in her first bodybuilding competition of the season, at the excellent National Fitness Gym in Oxford, Ma. The event was sanctioned by the National Gym Association, and MC’d by our favorite hostess and natural bodybuilding promoter, Laura “Turtle” Tourtellot.
Natural Mass Bodybuilding & Figure Power Fest, May 22, 2010, Maximum Fitness Gym, Oxford, Ma.
A huge number of people help out Nichelle as she prepares for these events. There’s our friend Denise DeFelice, who accompanied Nichelle all day, and handled her makeup. Diet advice comes from a number of bodybuilders and trainers (I need Nichelle to give me all the names). Her old manager from Best Fitness, Tom, double-checked all her poses. Denise Richardson, former Ms. America (not Miss America) winner, offers advice via phone and e-mail. Then of course there are the friends and family who cheer her on while training and at the show. (Thanks, Barbara, Naviana, Toni, and Toussant!) But, in the end, it’s Nichelle who’s started with some God-given talents and desire and added a superhuman amount of hard work, especially considering only a few years ago she weighed 100 pounds more than she does now.
Seriously, this is NOT a women I would argue with.
Nichelle looked stunning and performed fabulously. The crowd, which wasn’t that large, absolutely loved her! After Laura read her biography, someone behind me commented, incredulously, “Mother of four?” I am amazed at how much she improves from competition for competition. She isn’t just beautiful and superbly “cut,” she’s also incredibly graceful and has a phenomenal stage presence.
Nichelle Wilcox, 1st Place, Heavyweight AND Women's Best Overall Winner
Nichelle placed first in her “heavyweight” category (118 pounds or above). We were ecstatic. I believe someone in the crowd was jumping up and down and yelling, but I shan’t name names.
When we were getting reading to leave, we were presented with a huge surprise. Nichelle had been awarded the “Best Overall” award for the women competitors, but a glitch had left it unpresented during the awards ceremony. At that point we were beyond thrilled!
Yes, that's our License Plate
Nichelle took six entire hours off her strict diet to eat however she wanted. We celebrated at the Jasmine Restaurant, in nearby Auburn—sadly, they do not serve æ‹…æ‹…é¢. (Naomi showed off her Mandarin language skills and delighted the entire staff.) On the way home we stopped at Wal-Mart, because there were still a couple of the six hours left, and Nichelle wanted cheesecake.
Nichelle expects to compete next at the 2010 INBF Natural Connecticut Bodybuilding and Figure Championship in New Haven, Ct., on June 19, and again in New York City later in June. Of course, she also plans to be back at Laura Turtle’s Granite State Open, in Dover, N.H., in October.
There’s something fascinating about zombies, and a current cultural meme seems to have made them even more popular than the silly idea that the world will end in 2012. (One of the most popular video games around now is the second installment of Left 4 Dead, called Left 4 Dead 2, which is a teamwork-based game pitting humans against hordes of “infected.”) I’ll remind readers that I was a fan before the current massive popularly, generally ever since reading Max Brooks’ brilliantly-written survival-guide parody The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, and his captivating World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War novel.
Somewhere between reading Little Brother and being inundated with zombies, it occurred to me that a zombie hunt LARP would make a great party game for David and his friends on his 11th birthday. Here’s what we did:
One person is elected to be the starting zombie.
The zombie “infects” others by giving them a gentle “Indian sunburn.” (I didn’t want the kids biting each other.)
Once infected, a human has wait 30 seconds and then become an active zombie, hunting any human he can find.
The only way to stop a zombie is to shoot the zombie in the head with a Nerf gun. Such a shot removes the zombie from the remainder of the round.
Zombies move slowly and relentlessly, generally while moaning loudly.
The round ends when all human have been infected, or when all zombies have been killed.
Overall, this went very well. Next time, I’ll include a couple of minor improvements:
The kids kept barricading themselves in bathrooms. This sort of interior door will absolutely not stop a zombie, but will slow one down for a moment or two. I think to account for this, I’ll have the zombies go back to a central location, and get a paper sign that, when slid under the door, requires those within to open the door.
I need to figure out a way to allow for simulation of decapitation by sword. I think a Nerf or toy sword to the neck should work. Water-based magic markers would be fine, too.
There were a couple of really great moments. One was when my sweet daughter Naomi came up to me and gave me the “Indian sunburn.” This was perfectly reflective of the psychological difficulty of fighting zombies who were formerly loved ones. I should have shot her on sight!
Lego Left 4 Dead: Coming Soon (image thanks to XenoPrime).
(Sadly, you probably won’t see this anytime soon, but you never know. I remember when Lego wouldn’t manufacture Lego weapons for their minifigs.)
Comcast has recently switched its provided-for-free antivirus vendor from McAfee to Norton Security Suite, from Symantec. The subscriptions to McAfee Security Suite are due to expire in May. (Norton is named after Peter Norton, a true god of early personal computing utilities back when DOS was king and before all the cool things Peter wrote got licensed by Microsoft for use within their operating systems.
Overall, this is probably a good move, as Symantec’s 2010 offering seems to have recovered its lagging performance, and surged ahead of McAfee in the ratings.
A month ago, I installed Norton on our mostly-gaming-and-homework computer to see how it would run. I hadn’t had any real problem with Norton, and it does seem to be less intrusive than McAfee was, doing most of its scanning during idle times. I also switched our church’s media computer over to use it, and had only one minor problem that a reboot fixed.
(I should interject that “the cloud” has allowed me to radically de-task my specific-machine-focused life, so that, for most of the things that were so critical before, it now doesn’t matter which computer I use. Our wilcoxfamily.net e-mail and calendar are hooked to Google Apps; my notes are in Evernote, frequently accessed files are in DropBox, and even remote access tasks can be handled through LogMeIn.)
Last night I decided to switch from McAfee to Norton on the computer that gets the most use at home. This is the one that hosts our shared printer. I ran the installer from Comcast for Norton, which automatically uninstalls McAfee, lets you reboot, and installs Norton. There didn’t appear to be any problems … until Isaac tried to print from the other machine, and got an error.
I checked the cables, successfully printed from the host machine, but nothing I did would fix the printing. I also discovered that trying to get to my host machine’s C drive from the network wouldn’t work (usually we do \{machinename}c$ to open it as a network share), although the D drive would open. I tried disabling the Norton firewall and anitvirus temporarily, but the network resources still wouldn’t connect.
I fired up a chat session with a Symantec representative named Srini, and he checked my spooler settings. Ultimately Srini wasn’t able to help. While this fairly slow support was going on, I hit the Web, searching for one of the error messages I received while trying to open the C drive, “Not enough server storage is available to process this command.” Among other results indicating the same problem, I found a KnowledgeBase article at Microsoft that describes the symptoms and a possible fix. I also discovered a number of posts suggesting that this was a relatively common problem with Symantec products, although other products or networking configurations can produce the same symptoms.
So, having nothing to lose, I took a stab at fixing the IRPStackSize property in my registry. In my case, the key didn’t exist, so I added it by using RegEdit to navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESystemCurrentControlSetServicesLanmanServerParameters key, and then added a new DWORD named IRPStackSize (the capitalization is important). I right-clicked on the new key, and edited the decimal value to 18 (hexadecimal 12). Then I restarted the computer, which is necessary for the change to work.
Yep, there's your problem right here: Setting the IRPStackSize parameter in the registry editor.
Upon restart, my network resources were accessible again, and printing to the shared printer worked perfectly. Tonight I’ll try to contact the Symantec representative again and let him know how this was fixed.
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, which is a teamwork-based game pitting humans against hordes of “infected.”) I’ll remind readers that I was a fan before the current massive popularly, generally ever since reading Max Brooks’ brilliantly-written survival-guide parody 
, and his captivating 
novel.
, which can be downloaded for free at 
