Shira made me Birthday cake last night. We have a road trip to Rochester today. Could I imagine leaving the cake at home? No, no I couldn't.
I may not get WiFi on this device, but at least it won't run out of batteries and will be keep me well entertained.
Thanks Babe for such a delicious birthday!
From Buzzfeed:
And sure enough, on this, my 35th birthday, I can clearly recall this scene:
D'oh - I'm old :-). How did that happen?
Seriously, though - I've got a super wife, loving family and friends, the most amazing 20 month old on the planet, a job that rocks, and a full head of hair. I really, truly, couldn't ask for anything more.
Yep, life at 35 is good.
For years, I've noticed a path that appears to follow Rt 66 -- though, it was only a few days ago that Shira and I decided to venture out and explore it. The path is known as Custis Trail, and it's a real gem. It essentially connects the W&OD trail to Rossyln. And while it follows 66, we didn't find the road noise especially distracting.
Here's what we managed to get accomplished last Sunday (with a kid on my back, no less):
After seeing an Urban Survival Kit like this one (and this one, and this one and this one), I just couldn't resist making my own. Forget the Boy Scouts, this little project brought back memories of Cub Scouts, where we crammed a survival kit in a film canister. My, that was fun, though good luck to us if we ever needed one. Still, it planted the seed of preparedness.
So here goes - what I managed to cram in an Altoids Tin. It's worth mentioning that I decided: (a) to focus the kit on things that would actually be useful on a regular basis (b) I tried to limit what I stored in there so that it wasn't impossible to repack.
Contents:
So what's in your get-through-the-day kit?
This 5 minute video follows the creation of the first soccer team of the Thai island of Koh Panyee. Whether you like soccer or not, it's a must watch.
Who said you needed a little thing like a grass field to play soccer?
Via: Kottke.org
Yesterday, our little one was diagnosed with a bacterial infection. That means no returning to Day Care for 24 hours while he's contagious (ignoring the fact that he's already given whatever he had to everyone there over the last few days - but, whatever - rules are rules). What a prefect opportunity, I figured, to ditch work and play for the day. So, that's what we did.
I wanted to get outside for a little hiking adventure, but I wanted to do it close to home. I thought I'd give Potomac Overlook Park a second visit, as I recalled seeing a 2 mile loop there that looked intriguing.
The hike, which starts off taking you through the park itself, is pleasant enough. You get the feeling of being in the woods, but with a family friendly trail. Then the trail hooks up with Donaldson Run, and things actually get kind of interesting. There's 3 or 4 stream crossings to make, as you go from one side of the run to the other. There's a mysterious abandoned structure to oggle, and finally the hike finishes in a steep a slightly nerve racking (well, with a 29lb toddler on your back, anyway), finish to the Potomac Heritage Trail.
You get all this excitement in a stretch that's about a mile or so long. It turned out to be the perfect little day trip out.
Got to love those sick day policies after all!
Preparing for Passover this year has been surprisingly, well, not stressful (I can't go as far as calling it relaxing). The secret, I think was that I managed to spread the tasks out over multiple weeks. For example, I usually do a fridge cleaning marathon - but by spreading it out over multiple sessions, it was a lot easier.
Here, for my use next year, is basically the schedule I followed.
(NOTE: there's mention of 1 shopping trip here. Shira and David have probably made half-a-dozen. I'm on the cleaning team, not the shopping team, so their timeline and tactics don't concern me)
Here's to a Happy, Health and Kosher Passover - Chag Semeach and L'chiam
Hard to believe, but the 7 dozen eggs shown here will most likely all be consumed during the 8 days of Passover.
Got to love this Holiday!
Note to self: avoid a cholestrol test over the next couple weeks.
It's crunch time in the world of Passover Preperationville. Today's goal: clean out the car. Good Gosh, having a toddler makes this experience unique: as I peeled back every surface I could find in the car and car seat, I found another batch of crackers. I must have cleaned up an entire box of Ritz during this process.
I did, however, stumble on a useful car seat fact: rather than jam the top of the car seat into the headrest, it's trivial to just remove the headrest altogether. Now the headrest won't get damaged from the car seat, and my field of view is improved back there.
With the cars cleaned up, I've only got about 742 things left to do before Passover starts Monday night. Gulp.
I've found that webdav can be a really handy way to publish file to a server. With a modern version of Apache I usually find that webdav is just waiting for me to turn it on. That means I can enable publishing just by tweaking my Apache config, and not having to bother with setting up an FTP server (with the firewall rule and unix accounts backing it up).
It all Just Works. That is, with one itty bitty exception: by default attempts to upload a .htaccess file fail with a 403 error code. Inside the Apache log, I find:
[Thu Apr 14 06:06:00 2011] [error] [client xx.xx.xx.xx] client denied by server configuration: /var/www/vhosts/yyyyyyy/.htaccess
This is actually quite explainable, as there's the following standard configuration in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:
#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being
# viewed by Web clients.
#
<Files ~ "^\.ht">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>
I knew I didn't want to simply yank out these lines, as that would leave a gaping security whole. Instead, after much poking and prodding I came up with the following recipe:
<VirtualHost xxxx>
ServerName xxxxxxxxxxxx
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/yyyyyyyy
...
<Location />
DAV on
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Private"
AuthUserFile zzzzzzzzzz
<LimitExcept POST GET>
Require valid-user
</LimitExcept>
</Location>
<Files ~ "^\.ht">
Require valid-user
Satisfy any
</Files>
</VirtualHost>
For the most part, the above is the standard virtual host setup for using webdav. For GET and POST requests you allow any user to access the URL, and for other types of requests (which include webdav requests), you require a user.
The funky part happens within the Files block. The Require statement is fairly obvious - it insists that any user who wishes to access a .htaccess file must be logged in (which is a requirement for using webdav). The Satisfy directive took a little longer to figure out. Without it, the original rule in httpd.conf was still taking effect, which always denied access. With that Satisfy directive, I'm saying that you can *either* be a logged in user, or be denied.
Slowly but surely, I'm understanding Apache's configuration rules enough that I can actually use them to my benefit. And I suppose that's another bonus you get for using webdav - you have one powerful set of configuration rules to control access for both web viewers as well as publishers, versus needing two different systems (say, Apache for web viewing and an FTP server for publishing).
A friend of mine asked me for some links/suggestions for learning Emacs. While, I was naturally excited that another soul was interested in the emacs religion, I do appreciate the awfully high learning curve involved. It's been years since I sat in a University at Buffalo CS113 class getting schooled on how emacs worked.
To help him get started, though, I've compiled the following 10 links into emacswiki.org - a site that consistently shows up first when I search for all things emacs. I've tried to focus this list on some core concepts that I absolutely rely on. Many of these aren't sexy topics, but emacs has never been about flashiness - it's about editing text quickly and never having to take your hands off the keyboard.*
Once you've mastered the basics, it's time to ponder the emacs lisp list - which provides plenty of add on functionality for emacs.
So, if you were learning emacs today - what topics would you focus on?
*Yes, I know your whiz bang IDE can do all this functionality. Congrats. This list isn't meant to be a: "emacs is better than X list" -- I'll leave that to others to duke out.
HikingUpward.net has an impressive catalog of Northern Virginia hikes. Like LocalHikes, the list is quite extensive. But, they go beyond simple descriptions and reviews.
The handy overview map and easy to use get directions to this hike cool. But, by far, the coolest feature are annotated photos. Such as,
There's nothing more frustrating than trying to take a hike in some far off location, only to be stumped as to where the trail actually begins.
Definitely a useful site.
Pop Quiz: your 0-3 year old wants to play with the digital camera you left lying within reach. You should:
Positive Discipline: The First Three Years, which I just finished reading, is essentially dedicated to teaching you about option (d) - None of the above.
As I've mentioned, the book tries to focus on interacting with children using methods other than punishment (options a. and b.) and permissiveness (option c.).
At stake is far more than simply a "well behaved child" (an absurd notion at 0-3 years old). The idea is that the techniques behind positive discipline help set the foundation for a confident and capable child. I really like this notion - for example, that the struggles our 19 month old is having with tantrums is really an opportunity for growth, more than anything else.
This isn't the best book I've read on parenting - right now, these books hold that title. But, it definitely felt like key information that I should know, and that I wasn't going to figure out on my own. Basically, if you're wondering should you be spanking your kid, or what the heck you can do about your child's misbehavior - this book is a must read.
You've got to feel for this kid: being told your too young the job you've always wanted is a frustrating experience. I'd probably cry if I was in his shoes. Just watch it, it's hilarious.
I left our little one, who's 19 months old, in front of my work laptop for about 20 seconds while I ran upstairs to get my car keys. What's the worst that could happen, was he going to delete all my e-mail or something?
I came back, and found this:
He managed to flip the orientation of the screen from landscape to portrait. The only way I know how to do this is by going through a series of menus and hitting the confirm button a dialog box. Yet he managed to find some mechanism to do this in the 20 seconds I left him alone.
Amazing. Makes me wonder what kind of skills they're teaching him at day care. I'm going to have to have a talk with them - in this household we learn Emacs shortcuts first, *then* Windows shortcuts. It's just our way.
I'm making my way through Positive Discipline: The First Three Years - a day care recommended book on the topic of discipline. For the most part, I'm really enjoying it and finding it quite useful. I'll do a full review when I'm finished with the book, but reading through the chapter on technology got me thinking enough that a blog post was called for.
A very quick and dirty summary of the book might go like this: Your 0-3 year old needs to learn about the foundations of discipline*. To do this, you need to find the midpoint between punishment and permissiveness. In other words, spanking your child is out, and so is letting them do whatever they want. Instead, you want to help your child achieve the age appropriate level of independence.
Got all that? The book then goes through the classic range of topics, from tantrums to toilet training, and explains how this philosophy applies. It's a sensible approach and one I think they do a good job with. That is, until they hit the chapter on technology.
As you can imagine, the chapter on technology (TV, computers, and other screen time activities) leaned heavily towards the danger of these mediums. Everything from the "it's not healthy for their brains" to the "they'll see poor role models" is covered. Essentially, it's easy to swing to the permissive side of things when technology is involved. And the points are all valid.
What got me buzzing though, was that there was no suggestions for how technology could be used as a positive force in a child's life. You're telling me that with infinite content of YouTube, the highly interactive nature of cell phones and power of the desktop computer, there's no way to harness this good? When our little one listens to CDs of nursery rhymes, it's a good thing - he learns all sorts of language constructs. Yet, when you add a visual component, it suddenly becomes TV and is evil?
I'm not suggesting the book shouldn't have had plenty of stern warnings about technology being a trap for kids. I just wish that they would have considered the technology what it is: tools. And giving parents suggestions for how these tools could be used in a positive way would be far more valuable than just writing them off as a necessary evil.
*That's discipline as in "man, that Olympic athlete is disciplined!" not discipline as a euphemism for punishment or spankingI've always struggled with wrapping my head around the various configuration parameters of MySQL. Whenever I try to read the docs or look around for informative articles I either find obvious stuff I know (such as using explain to check for index usage) or the content goes way over my head in a hurry.
I saw the recommendation to give mysqlreport a try and because I'm always on the lookout for new tools I jumped at the chance.
The install couldn't have been more hacker friendly, with one option being:
wget hackmysql.com/scripts/mysqlreport from your terminal
With no crazy dependencies to fulfill, I was able to generate a report from one of my servers in just a few seconds.
As I glanced over the report my eyes definitely started to glaze over - so many numbers, and buffers and more numbers. And then I started reading the myqlreport guide. What a truly wonderful document. The author of mysqlreport not only takes you through the output of his software, but explains how the information presented interpreted.
It's the best read on MySQL performance I've ever found. It's fairly dense stuff, and you can't rush through it - but it's worth the read. Definitely a find.
My I get hungry, I get cranky. This is a bad thing. So, taking a lesson from my Mom and Grandma, I try to always have a snack at the ready when I'm out and about. From my perspective, the LÄRABAR is about an ideal EDC food as you can get:
In the winter, I kept one in my jacket pocket and found it to be ever so useful. Come summer time, I'm not sure where I'll stash one on me.
What's your favorite portable snack?
OK, maybe Best should be replaced with Geekiest. I guess if I was really clever I could have left a note mentioning closures, lambda or continuations.
Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Lisp!
Yesterday was an absolute perfect day - 80'ish degrees and sunny. I had chance to take an excellent walk outside with our little guy, and most importantly - for the first time ever - eat on our deck:
That humble little setup may not be much, but my gosh it was nice sitting outside in the warm breeze.
Today, we've gotten torrential rains and it's currently cold and cloudy outside. And soon enough it'll be too hot and muggy to sit outside - but in DC, when you get a perfect day, you've got to enjoy it to the max.
Relayed through Parent Hacks:
This may be brilliant or evil, but being sick of the endless holiday candy train with my kids, I'm going to just get a small set of Legos and fill their eggs with them.
Again, not knowing anything about Easter, I think I can still call this a clever and useful hack. In fact, I wonder if the same maneuver could be applied to Halloween? Probably not, as the whole cool factor of accumulating lots of eggs and then resulting in lots of Lego pieces is unlikely. But still, it's a thought. Or maybe there's a way to mix in hidden legos during the whole search for the Afikoman?
Last week I actually picked up a sleeve full of plastic Easter Eggs at the store for $1.75 or so with the intention of giving our little one something fun to play with. So far, he's had great fun mashing them together and practicing opening and closing them. I definitely got my $2.00 out of them.
If I could sing like these guys I would make it my goal in life to sit around with 3 of my buddies and spend the day signing. My gosh, they are beautiful.
This video has embedding disabled, so you'll have to click over to YouTube to watch it. Luckily, this one I can embed:
Magnificent stuff, no?
Last Thursday night (yes, on a school night!) my brother and I had the chance to see Judah Friedlander at the DC Improv. Here was my take on the evening:
All in all, it was a wonderful evening and I did get in plenty of laughs. The true high point, however, may have been the food. The Mexican salad I ordered was both fresh and gigantic (and how can you overdue it on salad?) and the chocolate mousse cake was off the charts good.
