Another weekend filled with chores and stuff. You would think that after a week of work, one could have the weekend off, but, <SteveMartinVoice>nnnnnnoooooooo</SteveMartinVoice> the weekend fills up with all the stuff one has to do around the house and that couldn’t be done while you were working.

Let’s see, we start with a 3 mile run with our
Portland Marathon
training group,
the kids have a
concert and orchestra rehearsal
and tonight, the wife and I have a
play
to go to.
Tomorrow, I get to finish my
taxes
, move the house phone line so it’s out of the way for the contractor on Monday (with the necessary trip to
Frys
),
pick up more of the house because of the mess of the remodel.

Sigh. That doesn’t leave me much time to work on this web site, the
picture pages
(fun with
XML
and
XSLT
) and writing more stuff here. Maybe next weekend.

We’re being te Great Remodel Project. A few years ago we remodeled the kitchen and livingroom area. Now we’re remodelling the otehr half of the house. This is a big project with moving walls and rearranging bathrooms. I will eventually have a remodle page up with plans and pictures. I may even move some of the
cameras in the house
so I can have “remodel cam”.

The downside is that the whole family has to move into the basement for three months. I’m packing this weekend while the family is in Paris. That takes some of the stress off — there is only myself to deal with — but it also means I get to do all the work.

The contractor begins the demolition on Monday (March 24) so I’d better get packing.

It is just pouring rain this morning. The trees are coming out green. The grass is green and, with no music or noise in the house, I can hear te rain pounding on the roof. Such a wonderful sound on a Saturday morning.

This morning I put my family on a plane to Paris. We had arranged the trip many months ago through my son’s
school
.
I, being the bread-winner, get to stay home.
Staying home is not too bad since I
went last year
.

But, we didn’t plan for a war when spring break dates were set.
And Bush would not change the date of his attack no matter how much
money we pledged to the Republican Party. Sigh.

I’m sure they’ll be all right.
In fact, they will probably have a wonderful time since there won’t be
crowds in Paris. They will have the
Louvre
to themselves.

Here is a thought about style rather than substance of the current War in Iraq situation

One of the stereotypes of the 90s is the “Emperial CEO” and the go-go agendas and work habits of the high powered business world. The CEO has an idea, he/she commands something to happen, and the minions execute it. Even if it is a bad idea. If the CEO as good ideas, this works great. Enron is one example of this system going bad — even the “oversight” accounting companies stretched the rules to make the goal happen.

Now think of the President of the United States. His background is not Washington, DC. His background is corporate America. He is our new CEO and he as some ideas. And his minions are executing his ideas.

Even though the United States has the equivilent of Auther-Anderson, will they do just as well at oversight?

I mentioned staying in bed this morning.
I like my comfortable bed — spendy matress and 400 count sheets make a comfortable place to lie and read.

What I aspire to is a
Heavenly Bed
found at the
Westin Hotels
Heavenly Bed.
They offer to sell them, but I can’t go for the $2,500.

What a wonderful Sunday morning — spent the time just lying in bed reading. The window over my bed was open and I could hear the rain and wind of this cool, wet Oregon spring morning.

My wife is off at a
marathon and the kids are sleeping late, so I have the morning to myself. I finished reading by #15
To Much Coffee Man which is a wonderful and interesting independent ‘zine. For me, it’s a look into the independent ‘zine publishing world — the main stream press (and even much of the non-mainstream
tech press
) focuses on what the big guys are doing.
But, behold, the little guys are alive and kicking.
TMCM is an example of a good, non-mainstream paper magazine.
#15 has an interview with Dan Sinker of
Punk Planet
which is about the non-mainstream music publishers.

Makes a Sunday morning in bed even better knowing the world
isn’t all going to pieces — there are still people out there striving
and going Good Things.

Passed around the net:

I’m looking for the link to the origional.
I’m also not sure how much current the USB connector is rated for.

It’s beginning to look like spring around here:

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Over at ThinkGeek I stumbled on the smoke ring gun. I was “I gotta have” at first sight. I mean is shoots cool, floating smoke rings!!!

Well, it arrived in the mail yesterday and the kids and I have almost gone through a whole bottle of smoke fluid (which is A LOT of smoke rings). So standing over the stairs (where there are overhead lights that make the rings stand out) you can find us shooting smoke rings.

There is a “speed” setting on the gun which sets the speed that the smoke rings speed away from the gun. The current game is to shoot a slow ring then switch to fast rings and try and shoot through the slow moving ring.

The TechTV interview of us has been showing around the world. They say they have a large presence in Asia. I can believe it since I’ve been chatting with people from Indonesia and Hong Kong. Some nice email and pleasent chats from people around the world.