So I picked the kids up from school today and one of them said "Hi" so I responded "low." They were, for some reason, fascinated by this. So I explained the idea of being presented with random words or phrases and responding with the first thing that pops into your mind. I know this is an exercise used by psychologists, employers and others to gauge certain aspects of a person's psyche. The thing is...even I was kind of taken aback by some of my responses. Here are a few.
McDonalds : therapy
Skate : Day of the Rope
Basketball Hoop: Orangutan
Park : Hang glider
Quicksand : Frisbee
Marshmallow : Alien
Those are the few that remain fresh in my memory from the 10 minute long session we had in which we bounced words around as I drove. The thing is that I can explain all of them. It's just that I can't explain how I jumped from the impetus to my reactive word(s) without hitting upon the steps in between until I gave retrospective thought to it.
It seems to me that someone administering a test of this sort to me would find my answers to be rather insane. So I wonder if my having skipped several logical steps in the relational chain is a sign that my mind is still going strong and just thinks so quickly and so efficiently that it doesn't have to register all the steps in order to reach the conclusion or if it means that my mind has weakened to the point where it gets lost along it's way and instead of being able to relate the very first thought in the though chain it wanders along that chain momentarily before tripping on a link down the line and spewing forth apparently random nonsense.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Sansa e200 playlist sync problem
I have been searching for three days to solve a problem with my SanDisc Sansa e270 MP3. When I first got it I loaded it up with all my music, videos and playlists with no problems whatsoever. After having installed some updates to my system and such I find I'm suddenly unable to use Windows Media Player 11 to synchronize playlists. It will copy all of the music to the player but not the playlist. This was quite frustrating as I use my player almost exclusively to listen to audio books.
Well, three days later (which is almost unheard of for me as I am a VERY good internet researcher) I finally found a solution. It seems that this problem is common to ALL e200 series players that Sansa has created. NONE of them are working anymore (way to go Microsoft.) Turns out there is someone out there looking out for all of us Sansa users though. A company called "Hot Coffee Software has created a FREE Sansa Playlist creator and editor. It lets you use the player in MSC mode so you can drag and drop just like you would in Explorer. It lets you create, edit and merge playlists. You can make playlists from files on your computer or files that are already on your Sansa player. It is THE solution to the Sansa playlist problem.
You can find the file here http://hcware.110mb.com/sansa/ and I must give linkage to the place that led me to this find which is a forum at a place called "anything but ipod" (which, despite my love for Apple, is something dear to my heart as I hate ipods) You can find the link to the forum post here http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3827&highlight=playlists and I would imagine that a few other non ipod issues might be solved at this forum as well.
Well, three days later (which is almost unheard of for me as I am a VERY good internet researcher) I finally found a solution. It seems that this problem is common to ALL e200 series players that Sansa has created. NONE of them are working anymore (way to go Microsoft.) Turns out there is someone out there looking out for all of us Sansa users though. A company called "Hot Coffee Software has created a FREE Sansa Playlist creator and editor. It lets you use the player in MSC mode so you can drag and drop just like you would in Explorer. It lets you create, edit and merge playlists. You can make playlists from files on your computer or files that are already on your Sansa player. It is THE solution to the Sansa playlist problem.
You can find the file here http://hcware.110mb.com/sansa/ and I must give linkage to the place that led me to this find which is a forum at a place called "anything but ipod" (which, despite my love for Apple, is something dear to my heart as I hate ipods) You can find the link to the forum post here http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3827&highlight=playlists and I would imagine that a few other non ipod issues might be solved at this forum as well.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tired of the sock battle
I know this just MIGHT cause some of you to pass out so please take a seat (if, by some chance, you were standing at your computer or maybe using a public internet kiosk at a mall just to access my blog.) I'm actually going to write something of USE.
So here's the thing. I married into a family of 4. Three of those are children. Children apparently have some odd flaws. They are incapable of certain acts pertaining to footwear. They can't seem to sort socks, they can't seem to distinguish between their socks and those belonging to others and when they are GIVEN a PAIR of their OWN socks they can't seem to get them BOTH into the laundry basket for the same wash cycle.
All these things borne in mind and realizing that I really hate dealing with a huge basket of socks (ours has pretty much become a perpetual basket that stays in the kids room and they pull socks out as needed)I have come up with an idea.
Now this is not an entirely new idea. I've seen part of it employed before. The first part is easy. Use a laundry marker to put your child's initial on their socks. If it makes the kid feel better you can agree on a shape, smiley face, colored X or whatever. Now this helps to keep their own socks on their own feet. But it really doesn't help when it comes to them trying to find a pair that matches. So I have decided that when new socks are purchased not only will their initial go onto the sock but it will be followed by a number.
Zach will have two Z-1 socks and two Z-2 socks etc. This will solve a number of issues. Firstly, it will make sorting a breeze. You sort the letters and match the numbers and you're done. It also helps to eliminate orphan socks. When a sock becomes torn or stretched or blood stained you dispose of it and it's numeric pair. It can also be used as a pre wash incentive. You can line up the socks and tell at a glance which have a mate missing somewhere in the house and send your children on a search for just the missing ones.
So that's my future plan in a nut shell. I figure that I won't have to go much higher than a 24 on the numbering. That's a few packs of socks and by the time you've had to purchase a third or fourth pack of socks for your kid they had better have a good reason for needing them (meaning that the lower numbers will have been thrown out and can then be reused.)
So here's the thing. I married into a family of 4. Three of those are children. Children apparently have some odd flaws. They are incapable of certain acts pertaining to footwear. They can't seem to sort socks, they can't seem to distinguish between their socks and those belonging to others and when they are GIVEN a PAIR of their OWN socks they can't seem to get them BOTH into the laundry basket for the same wash cycle.
All these things borne in mind and realizing that I really hate dealing with a huge basket of socks (ours has pretty much become a perpetual basket that stays in the kids room and they pull socks out as needed)I have come up with an idea.
Now this is not an entirely new idea. I've seen part of it employed before. The first part is easy. Use a laundry marker to put your child's initial on their socks. If it makes the kid feel better you can agree on a shape, smiley face, colored X or whatever. Now this helps to keep their own socks on their own feet. But it really doesn't help when it comes to them trying to find a pair that matches. So I have decided that when new socks are purchased not only will their initial go onto the sock but it will be followed by a number.
Zach will have two Z-1 socks and two Z-2 socks etc. This will solve a number of issues. Firstly, it will make sorting a breeze. You sort the letters and match the numbers and you're done. It also helps to eliminate orphan socks. When a sock becomes torn or stretched or blood stained you dispose of it and it's numeric pair. It can also be used as a pre wash incentive. You can line up the socks and tell at a glance which have a mate missing somewhere in the house and send your children on a search for just the missing ones.
So that's my future plan in a nut shell. I figure that I won't have to go much higher than a 24 on the numbering. That's a few packs of socks and by the time you've had to purchase a third or fourth pack of socks for your kid they had better have a good reason for needing them (meaning that the lower numbers will have been thrown out and can then be reused.)
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Texting Addiction
So I got a wild hair and looked up texting addiction. This is because of viewing the usage history for my 14 year old since we allowed him to spend his allowance on unlimited texting. I found one article where the addicted person being interviewed said that they sometimes reached 5000 messages a month. Another article complained of a child running up a $600+ bill with texting (equaling over 12,000 messages).
Well here is a sad look into my child's life.
Between the 22nd of May and the 13th of June he has sent or received 14,066 text messages. That's in only 22 days. As I'm sure you're figuring out I'm obsessed with numbers. He's averaged 639 messages a day. I'll assume he sleeps 9 hours a night (I'm using yesterday as a gauge: he got up (started texting) at 9:10 and went to bed (stopped texting) at 11:48 so that is around 15 waking hour.) So 15 hours a day waking time for 22 days is 330 hours. That is 42.6 texts per waking hour.
Oh, and using yesterday as a guide I found that 47% of those are sent by him.
It is kind of scary to hear someone calling out that they are a texting addict with only 5000 texts per month (though I will admit they don't specify if that was total texts or only sent texts) when my child has SENT approximately 6,653 in only 22 days.
Now there is one ray of hope here. One tidbit that may indicate that he's not QUITE as addicted as he may seem. You see, many of his friends pay for their own cell plans and they have figured out that they can get an absolutely minimal minute plan with unlimited texting. That allows them to have conversations with multiple persons at one time and also allows them to converse in an unlimited fashion without using thousands of talking minutes and therefore having to pay massive amounts for a voice plan to cover those minutes.
Still, I think it's an addiction...but maybe that's just me.
UPDATE: As of the end of the billing cycle (5/22/09 to 6/22/09) he sent and received a total of 20953 text messages (677 per day average) Oh, and for any pot / kettle types out there...my total messaging for that month was 715 and my wife's was 235 and we both use instant messaging on our phones.
Well here is a sad look into my child's life.
Between the 22nd of May and the 13th of June he has sent or received 14,066 text messages. That's in only 22 days. As I'm sure you're figuring out I'm obsessed with numbers. He's averaged 639 messages a day. I'll assume he sleeps 9 hours a night (I'm using yesterday as a gauge: he got up (started texting) at 9:10 and went to bed (stopped texting) at 11:48 so that is around 15 waking hour.) So 15 hours a day waking time for 22 days is 330 hours. That is 42.6 texts per waking hour.
Oh, and using yesterday as a guide I found that 47% of those are sent by him.
It is kind of scary to hear someone calling out that they are a texting addict with only 5000 texts per month (though I will admit they don't specify if that was total texts or only sent texts) when my child has SENT approximately 6,653 in only 22 days.
Now there is one ray of hope here. One tidbit that may indicate that he's not QUITE as addicted as he may seem. You see, many of his friends pay for their own cell plans and they have figured out that they can get an absolutely minimal minute plan with unlimited texting. That allows them to have conversations with multiple persons at one time and also allows them to converse in an unlimited fashion without using thousands of talking minutes and therefore having to pay massive amounts for a voice plan to cover those minutes.
Still, I think it's an addiction...but maybe that's just me.
UPDATE: As of the end of the billing cycle (5/22/09 to 6/22/09) he sent and received a total of 20953 text messages (677 per day average) Oh, and for any pot / kettle types out there...my total messaging for that month was 715 and my wife's was 235 and we both use instant messaging on our phones.
Friday, June 5, 2009
2 days of my life
It seems that the people in my house are incapable of operating the spring loaded toilet paper roller. At least none of them seem to want to. I have realized that living in a house with five people we go through a roll of toilet paper a day. And I have noticed that I am the only one who puts it on the roller. I have also registered the fact that it takes me 6 to 10 seconds to complete this task.
So assuming that this task takes 10 seconds every time (sometimes I drop the toilet paper and sometimes I have to go into the hall for a new roll so a high estimate isn't uncalled for). Now let's assume I'll live to be 80 years old. Having started this routine of mine at about 30 years of age when I married into my family we'll say I'll do this for 50 years. Now I know that the kids will eventually move out (probably) but at that point we'll probably change over to a more comfortable if slightly more expensive toilet paper and will use the smaller rolls. We will also probably use the bathroom more often as we will be getting older. As such I'll assume that I will continue to change the roll once a day.
In 50 years there will be 18,250 days. Ten seconds per day is 182,500 seconds spent changing toilet paper. That works out to 2 days 2 hours 41 minutes 40 seconds. So I'm going to spend over 2 full days of my life putting toilet paper on the roller.
Now if that's not a crappy deal I don't know what is. ;-)
So assuming that this task takes 10 seconds every time (sometimes I drop the toilet paper and sometimes I have to go into the hall for a new roll so a high estimate isn't uncalled for). Now let's assume I'll live to be 80 years old. Having started this routine of mine at about 30 years of age when I married into my family we'll say I'll do this for 50 years. Now I know that the kids will eventually move out (probably) but at that point we'll probably change over to a more comfortable if slightly more expensive toilet paper and will use the smaller rolls. We will also probably use the bathroom more often as we will be getting older. As such I'll assume that I will continue to change the roll once a day.
In 50 years there will be 18,250 days. Ten seconds per day is 182,500 seconds spent changing toilet paper. That works out to 2 days 2 hours 41 minutes 40 seconds. So I'm going to spend over 2 full days of my life putting toilet paper on the roller.
Now if that's not a crappy deal I don't know what is. ;-)
Monday, March 16, 2009
Cameras and I
Should not be allowed to spend too much time together without adult supervision. As proof see below.
In today's economy you have to add a little extra to get things to sell. This house comes with it's owner.
Not sure about you but when I ask a blind kid what they did at camp this summer the one thing I don't expect to hear is "I learned to fire projectile weapons"
I hope they didn't really mean it.
There appears to be a man in a coat beating his fist against a window in the background. Why? We may never know. (Update: One of the people in the picture tried to convince me this was the reflection of the camera person holding the camera up. Of course, that would have to be a VERY warped as it could not have reflected someone back to themselves if they were standing at that angle. Also, why would someone taking a picture be holding the camera off to the side of their head to do so? I think there is something going on here they don't want us to know about...)
Da da, da da, da da, da da, BatDog!
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