Well, today is a neat day at work for sure. Last night I finished sanding the deck, fed Wugga Bugga 36 crickets, did a load of laundry, made some changes for the Battleship New Jersey website, put a min-max price display in the Shopcurtainrods.com OSC store, fixed the AD Import tool for IVCi, and did some work on the Marty project too.

Yesterday was one of those days that just flat out humbled me. First strike was forgetting to take my Lexapro, so I was all shockey all day long. I first experienced the shockey a few months ago when I forgot to call in the refill and had to wait a day or two. The shockey consists of the sensation of very light electrical shocks with pretty much every move I make. Feels weird, not crazy weird, just annoying.

The difficulty of getting the kids on the phone was really bothering me. Also, with the holidays approaching and my next visit to see Van and Viv coming, I’m faced with potentially not being able to see them until after the holidays. See, the buddy passes are pretty much blocked out during this busy travel season and money is OK, but tight. Especially tight with so much in the air. I sent my best friend Doug a weepy email asking him if he could consider what it would be like if he couldn’t see his son and daughter but once a month, and after this next weekend, then he wouldn’t see them for 6 months – maybe even until next summer. You don’t know what jammies your kids put on every night. No hugs. No after diner wrestling. No reading stories at bed time. Now throw on top of that, you can’t get them on the phone. He said he couldn’t even fathom where I am. Most days I can’t either.

I talked to Bubs for a few minutes while he played a video game and barely paid attention to me. Viv wouldn’t get on the phone. Later, Viv called me for a princess story and that felt good, I haven’t talked to her for nearly 3 days prior to that.

I watched Thank You For Smoking last night and it was really, really good. Part dark comedy, part cultural statement, and even a thread of storyline of the relationship between a father and son. Given the day I had, the scene where the main character gave up and lost his faith in himself was a clarion call. His son picked him up and helped him remember who he was.

I woke up and got a fast 2 mile run in with Yogi. Yogi really appreciated it. I might not make everyone happy and even myself most days, but that big pup sure does seem to like me.

• Worth1000′s Fine Art PS contest
• Iran So Far Away

My father and I worked hard this weekend on the back deck. The former owners of 173 Mohawk Trail reared their ugly ham-fisted heads yet again. First we tried to strip the paint using something recommended by the local hardware store. It was a gel you sprayed on, it smelled like Satan and burned my leg and wrist in a couple of spots. But it did very little to the paint or whatever the brown surface somewhat covering my deck. Next we got a roto-drum sander rented from another hardware store. The unevenness of the deck caused us to fly through the belts at an alarming rate. So much so, we took it back. The rental guy said “we’ve never had that problem with this”…thanks, we’re morons I guess? Whatever. We went the belt-sander route and took turns with a stain-stripper on the vertical surfaces. At this point, we were convinced that not only was the deck painted, but also stained as well. I decided to call an audible at the line of scrimmage to sand everything down and go with a darker solid stain. It’s not originally what I planned, but it will look good. I’ve got another evening of sanding to finish a couple spots, then the staining will go fast.

Doing this work with my Dad has been fun. Funniest moment – it’s a toss up between when Dad sanded the belt sander’s power cord to the bare wires or when the stay-on button became stuck on and each time you plug it in, you have to chase the run-away sander as it tears off like a haunted mini-bike. Also, it was fun to say we were “giving up on the stripper”.

I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Stark Truth this weekend. A Thousand Splendid Suns was brilliant. Khaled Hosseini is quickly becoming my favorite current author. The Stark Truth wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped. The writing wasn’t that great and I didn’t find myself agreeing with the majority of his selections for most overrated in a number of areas – Lou Brock the most overrated left fielder of all time? What? The criteria for being most overrated seemed to be derived from a formula on the following criteria: Did said player ever play for the Yankees? If they played for the Yankees, is their name Yogi Berra? Was this player a specialist (i.e. stolen base stud, but no pop)? If they weren’t a specialist and a true multi-tool player, did they put up insane numbers for a 5-7 years and then a sudden drop-off?

I finished the Active Directory Import Tool on Friday night. I finally finished the OS Commerce store changes, now I’m waiting on the SSL certificate to secure the store and it’s all done. (woo!) The Marty project is still going and I’ve got to use some sort of military entrenching tool to find some time to help Marty out before I go to Atlanta this Friday.

After Dad and I called it a day on Sunday, I took Yogi for his weekly swim. When we arrived, Yogi went swimming after a Canadian goose in the middle of the lake. After some honking and (literal) wild goose chasing, he spotted a turtle poking it’s head above the surface and swam after it

• The Visual Art of Mark Mothersbaugh
• Radiohead New Album In Rainbows – it’s not free, but how much? You decide…
• Modest Mouse Untitled Documentary – one of my favorite bands’ documentary shot during the recording of The Lonesome Crowded West.

Last night I went to bed very down. Although Marty and I got our code (mostly) straightened out and the Phils won again to gain a share of the NL East lead, my heart is suffering from too many very quick phone calls with my kids. It’s another adjustment, with their Mom starting a new job, everyone’s clock is tilted a little bit while we all get used to it. No one’s fault, just a change. The kids are tired and ready for bed when they call, they don’t want to hear about my day or tell me about theirs. But this morning, as I sat down at my cube, my cell rang and it was Viv. That just dusted all that depression-y soot off my heart (cough cough). Much better, thanks my little chimney sweeper.

So, back to the Marty project. One common complaint I’ve seen amongst PHP developers has been the growing number of hosts turning allow_url_fopen Off in php.ini (with good reason too). What this means is you can’t do an include of a file and pass a querystring through to that page. But, there is an answer my children – cURL. I should be able to refactor the code we’ve put together during my lunch break today. I have a lot of work on my plate for this weekend, especially with the coming visit to the kiddos next Friday. I need to finish the IVCi AD Import tool tonight. I also have two remaining items for the Curtain rods OSC site.

Weather permitting, my Dad is going to come over tomorrow and we’re going to sand the back deck (and front porch if we get to it). The deck sorely needs it. I really excited for next summer, when the kids will see their new backyard – the new playfort canopy, a nicer deck to have lunch and cookouts on, and hopefully (if I save my pennies) a canoe hanging off the fence for us to go paddling around the lakes.

Back to the Phightins… this town is crazed right now. It’s incredible. The only thing that makes me a bit sad is, I wish I was letting my son stay up late with me the past few nights to watch these games, just like my Dad did back in 1980. I will say this, if the Phils make it to the World Series (a stretch, I know), I will get us tickets and take him to a game, just like my Dad did in 1983.

Aside from working on the deck this weekend and writing a lot of code, I will get a big run in and a bike ride of some sort in. I’ve been wanting to put the bike on the rack and take a ride on Kelly Drive, but this weekend is a bit busy to squeeze that in, perhaps the first weekend back from seeing the kids.

Oh, I’d be remiss in not mentioning my victorious haiku entry over at Who Really Cares Anyway? And here is my prose (written about Diver Dan) in it’s entirety…(turns out I was the only submission, but also, I would point out, the best submission)

Diver Dan loves ham
I’d really like to see that
Mermaid on my loins

It’s beautiful, I know.

• The title of this one made me chuckle – it sounds as if I showed up at someone’s house and fell asleep on their couch.
• Tornado Potato – my carb deprived ass wants one
• The Crooked House
• Orphaned Hedgehogs Adopt Brush as Mother
• My SW Collection

I am a blur today. Every end of the candle is burning and it’s as though there’s a band of elves (I don’t know why, they’re just elves in my mind) is working feverishly to attach more wicks to melt as much wax as possible. I’m chasing down a few issues (PHP/MySQL/AJAX) for the Marty project. The day job has a ton of issues and project related requests flying all around my head. And it’s making me grumpy too. I feel a bit like King Kong high atop the Empire State Building, swatting at these buzzing planes shooting me in my monkey ass.

But all this stressery should be swept away this evening at least for nine innings of baseball. I’m going to the Phils-Braves game tonight with my folks and best buddy Doug. We’re going to have some damn good Eye-talian food pre-game (I’ll post the restaurant name tomorrow) in Philly. Tonight’s game should be good, lots of playoff implications for both teams.

I’m in the home stretch of A Thousand Splendid Suns and wow, this is another great book by Hosseini. Up next will be a nice easy read, The Stark Truth. I loves me some baseball statistical debatery. After the baseball book, my friend Deanna (a great DBA buddy from back in the days of IVCi and Forgent-that Wikipedia entry is great btw) and I plan on reading A Confederacy of Dunces together as an informal online book club. I know, I know – this is a far cry from the white tiger velvet rock star pants…I’m older now I guess.

I got to talk to both Van and Vivie last night. When Bubs called me happened to be the instant that Ryan Howard knocked one over the centerfield fence. I’m going to get the kids some Phils stuff at the game tonight and bring it to them next Friday. They both of course want Phanatic dolls…heck who wouldn’t?

After getting my work done, I headed out for a 4 mile run through Camp Ocky and ran into my buddy Rachel and her new 7 month old daughter (of twins, the boy was sleeping). She sent me back to her house for a visit with my good buddy and her husband Chris, whom I haven’t seen since the twins were born. Very good seeing their family. Chris and I promised to get together for beers and guitars some time soon. I finished the run and came home a sweaty mess. Then I took my big orange buddy (you know, the dog) for a nice swim.

• NHL Tournament of Logos
• The Nastiest Wiffle Ball Pitcher Ever – holy crap

I’m working from home today, to wait for the installer from Verizon to hook up my FIOS TV. I’m happy to be changing from digital cable due to it being $20/month cheaper with the same channel line-up. In some astounding customer service irony, I arrived at 5:01PM to return my cable receiver… the Comcast office on Rte. 561 was a ghost town…well, except for the three other customers that were apparently run over in a Comcast employee stampede at 5:00:001 PM. So yeah, buh-bye cable.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to the kiddos last night, but I’m hoping to get a chance to tell Viv a princess story tonight and talk to Bubs about his cool new playfort tent. I think I’m going to take a run this weekend through Camp Ocky and bring my camera along to put together a new comic for the kids. I need to think of a storyline now…

Grace is still doing really well with her lessons. This week I gave her a power chord classic “Smells Like Teen Spirit” to strengthen her fret hand and “About A Girl” to practice her strumming patterns. Her mom brought me a mason jar of limoncello, perhaps that would go nicely in my water bottle for the ride to Forked River this weekend?

I did some of the promotion for the Marty project (to help out with some of the DB connection stuff and executing the DML SQL on the DB itself), I figured out a way to build a rules engine by leveraging (aka bastardizing) the metadata tables in WordPress, I put together a quick package diagram for the Active Directory Import tool, I assisted my DBA buddy Bill with a big production promotion for the day job, and then I got to catch the last few innings of the Phils game while reading another chapter of A Thousand Splendid Suns.

I’ve got a healthy plateful of stuff to do this weekend : install the rack and pannier on the road bike (Monday will be my first commute day finally), store the window unit A/Cs in the attic, sand the back deck down to the natural wood, take Yogi swimming, install new canopy on the play set, laundry, hopefully stack the chord of firewood I’m going to order today, and Sunday I’ll be doing a 55 mile ride down to my Dad’s boat for a quick sail on the Barnegat Bay. I’ll definitely bring the camera along, this ride goes straight through the Pine Barrens, lots of cool stuff along the way.

• Robot Plays Crazy
• Carnies!!!