Family Pains

Some families are painful to be around. Mine's just painful to look at.



But we're a great family to be around!

This family picture was from our new annual tradition of Christmas in July. We used to have a strong family tradition for celebrating Christmas at the farmhouse in Iowa, but as the families have grown bigger with a new generation of kids and spouses, we've decided it's more practical to shift to a new tradition. As long as the weather isn't as hot as it was this year, it'll be a great tradition!

Moons Over My Hammy

Denny's has always had some really bad names for their platters, but that's one delicious sandwich.

Insert rough segue using the fact that this sandwich has cheese on it, and the moon is made of cheese, and...

Google does some great holiday logos. July 20th's logo, commemorating the first moon landing was cute. The link though, is hilarious. Zoom in and take as close a look as possible at the landing sites on Google's map of the moon.

On a related note, I have a coworker who really believes that the moon landings were all faked. He's got a background in Electrical Engineering and a Master's in Computer Science, and believes that we couldn't have created the technology to land on the moon and return in 1969. I've got respect for the guy, but on this, I think he's a bit wacko, personally.

Another Geeky Announcement

The last time I saw the first silver screen rendition of the Transformers, I was 9 years old. It was awesome, as I recall thinking then. Of course, I rended it several years later when I was in my late teens. It wasn't really so good. Still, I loved seeing an 85 minute long episode of one of my favorite cartoons.

When I went off to college my parents decided that all of my Transformer toys should stay with them. Someday they might have grandkids who would like to play with them. The time has come, but I still think it'll be a little while until Ellie wants to play Transformers with her dad.

To tide me over, it turns out, there's a new Transformers movie to be released in Jul 2007! The most amazing thing is that this looks to be a live action movie rather than animated. Can't wait.

It's fun to be a nerd.

This fall, the greatest new TV series to hit public television: NerdTV
See the story on slashdot.

One for Every occasion

I somehow got involved in the middle of a technical spat that occurred via email between a developer and a project manager that I work with... I guess as a technical lead, that's my role. But at the resolution of the conflict, I took a few minutes to relax and enjoy my screensaver, which is, of course, pictures of Ellie. She's got an expression appropriate to every situation:

"Why do you hate me!"


"I'm a perfect angel..."


"This is the best day of my life!"


"Good oral hygiene is important."


"WAAAASSSSUUUUPPP!"


And I'll let this one speak for itself, and apologize in advance for the embarrassment to my daughter.