Miscellaneous rambling, and bragging about my kids.

You forgot to write about your third ex-coworker that keeps spamming your blog.

What's funnier, given that I changed jobs about 4 months ago:

The former coworker (former to me — he still works there) who contacted me last week asking when I knew it was time to leave the company…

…or the one who contacted me to ask "Hey, have you seen the sysadmin around? I think the email server might be down."

I'm gonna go with B.

A long time ago I got a book of Buddhist fairy tales for the kids. It's too advanced for them, and it's been sitting on the shelf. The other day Katherine gets it and says, "We never read this one." So we've been reading it. Keep in mind that this is a girl who lately has told me, while reading stories, "Daddy, you have to use your magination. Picture it in your *mind*." With appropriate emphasis on "mind" as she points to her head. Don't know where she learned that.

Although the moral of these fairy tales might be obvious to a grown up, they are a little…violent for little kids. Like the one about the monkey who had plenty of fruit on his side of the river, and the crocodile who convinced him that the *good* fruit is over on the other side of the river, and all the monkey need do is hop on the crocodile's back for a ride. Naturally the crocodile gets to the middle of the river and starts to sink, in an attempt to drown the monkey and eat him. The monkey escapes to tell more stories. But the moral is supposed to be something like, "The monkey knew not to trust the crocodile, but he was greedy to get at the fruit on the other side, and if he was happy with what he had instead of desiring what he didn't have [which turned out to be an illusion anyway] he would have been able to think straight and see the danger."

Translating this into something a 4yr old can understand, I try to make the analogy to the whole "stranger with candy" thing, and if somebody ever came up to you who you didn't know and offered you all the candy or toys in the world you still should know not to go with them.

Katherine tells me, "You know what else it's also like, Daddy? It's like if we were down at the river, and I told you to get on my back so we could swim across, and then we got out to the middle and I told you I was gonna bite your nose off."

Hot off the presses comes NBC's announcement that Scrubs is returning to Thursday nights starting on November 30! They're trying to bring back "Must See Thursday" by coupling Scrubs with their new 30 Rock, as well as hits Earl and The Office.

I wish NBC had some clue what it was doing. Half the time Scrubs is in danger of being cancelled, and the other half the time it is their most popular show. Make up your mind!

You'd think that having spent three days in San Diego at a hotel with free wireless internet, I would have found more time to blog. Well, not if it's a bad hotel. The wireless was indeed free, but the connection was always so very low that I couldn't stay connected worth a damn. So I got very little done.

I've been to San Diego once before. I stayed at a place called the Hotel Del Coronado, and I think it screwed up my expectations. This is one of those places where, when you put in your wake up call, not only does the operator say "Have a pleasant night, Mr. Morin" but there's an actual human who calls you in the morning to say "Good morning", not just recorded music. Even better, the event that defined the standard for me for all good hotel service? When I took my rental car out for the day to go into town, and I came back, the valet opened my door and said "Welcome back Mr. Morin, did you have a nice day?" I mean, come on. I knew when that happened that I'd be talking for years about the quality of service. Look at that, I still am.

So I'd gotten it into my head that all San Diego hotels were like that. When I found out I had a conference at the "Resort Kona Kai Marina", I thought I was in for sometihng special. Nope. Not at all. Totally generic hotel. As I mentioned, free but lousy wifi. No minibar. Not even a pen and pad of paper by the phone. And would you believe, no gift shop? I go looking for some quick gifts for the kids, maybe a magazine to carry around for downtime – nothing. There's a sign that says "Gift Shop", but I'm told they no longer have one. They say that maybe — maybe — the hotel next door does.

To understand that little statement you have to appreciate the geography. The hotels are not built up, or deep. They are built…long. So from lobby to your room could be a five minute walk. My coworker Gary was in the "next" hotel which was about 10+ minutes away. They really are next to each other, there's just such a long line of buildings represneting each hotel that it's hard to figure out where one ends and one begins. Sure enough, by the way, Gary's hotel does not have a gift shop either. The third one does, though – but no magazines or books.

So here I am on the floor of Phoenix airport, waiting for my flight back to Boston. This is the best connectivity I've had. I'm getting lots of work done. 🙂

Elizabeth, 2, in church:  "Where's God?  When's God getting here?"

Katherine, 4, is more keenly observant.  Spotting the stained glass windows showing the stations of the cross she asks, "How come those people tied Jesus up?"

Evans quits 'Dancing With the Stars' – Yahoo! News

I always wondered what would happen if somebody just quit the show. Sara Evans is getting divorced, and quitting the show to be with her family. So now the logical question is what will the show do? They can't just cut it by a week – way too many things are scheduled out in advance for such a move. Options:

• Go dark for a week to "catch up". Not gonna happen, too much of a ratings grabber.
• Have a week where nobody gets eliminated. I think Survivor did this a long time ago when somebody was injured and had to leave the game. Only really works if it's a surprise to the audience, otherwise what's the sense in tuning in?
• Bring back Willa, the most recent elimination. Who, granted, could just get eliminated again.

Naturally I like the last one the best.

Last night, everybody on the program including Jerry Springer got a minimum score of 24 (all 8's). There are six contestants left (Mario, Joey, Sara, Willa, Emmit, Jerry) sharing 6 points at the top. I saw an interesting post over at TVSquad that basically said that judges have taken themselves out of the voting by effectively giving everybody the same score, thus leaving the eliminations up to the audience vote. Compare to last season with Master P, who no one wanted there, so the judges kept giving him lower and lower scores every week until no amount of audience voting could save him.

So then. It's no longer about the dancing, it's about how much you appreciate the effort everybody puts into it. Otherwise Jerry Springer would not be one point away from Joey Lawrence.

Given that, who do you vote for? Who is the favorite?

Update: Willa? WILLA goes home? See, it's moves like that that take the fun out of the show for me. The producers love it because they can hype the "unpredictable" nature of live television, but everybody watching knows that Willa is a better dancer than Jerry. Maybe the judges will turn it around after all and start marking Jerry down in an attempt to control the results a bit. Just because you try hard doesn't mean that the final results should be a total crapshoot.

Some friends came up for a visit and brought gifts for the kids. Katherine got a book and movie, Elizabeth got an Angelina Ballerina doll. This caused Katherine to find new love for her own Angelina doll, which she has been carrying everywhere since.

Today we were out and about for the day and while cleaning up I wanted to make sure no toys were lost. I saw Katherine's pink Angelina doll. "Elizabeth," I asked, "Where's your other Angelina doll?"

Katherine's head whipped around. "That pink one's mine, Daddy."

"I know, sweetheart."

"Which one are you looking for?"

"The blue one."

"That one is Elizabeth's."

"Yes, I know."

"But why did you say Elizabeth's *other* one?"

In other words, don't make the mistake for a second that both dolls are Elizabeth's. One is Katherine's and don't you forget it. Nice.

Being on maintenance medication means regular trips to the doctor to get bloodwork done. It's quite the annoyance, not because I mind getting stuck with the needle by someone who literally has no medical training, but because I hate being late for work.

Last time I did this I met up with a member of Oprah's army who, I'm quite sure, would have stabbed James Frey on the spot for sullying Oprah's good book recommending name. This is the woman who gave me the memorable quote, "You shouldn't make Oprah mad, she's very powerful."

This time, arriving at 8:30 like I always do, I'm told that she doesn't get in until 9, and that's it's always been that way. Lies. And that she leaves at 5, too, guaranteeing that I have to miss a good chunk of my work day to get this done. When she finally calls me in I sit in the chair in silence (no small talk or anything from this one) while she stares at the computer. Wiggles the mouse. Straightens the monitor. Looks confused. Presses the space bar.

Meanwhile I'm waiting. And waiting. And she's doing her little thing. Space bar. Mouse. Monitor. Repeat.

After maybe 3 minutes of this she wheels her chair out the door and shouts down the hall, "Does Terry turn this off before she goes home at night?"

Three people, including my primary care physician whom I know to be a kindred geek, appear. Must be a slow morning. My doctor reaches under the desk and TURNS THE COMPUTER ON.

I've been waiting here now for several minutes for the privilege of getting blood drawn from my body by someone who DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO TELL IF A COMPUTER IS TURNED ON.
Wouldn't you think that that's a pre-requisite before jamming needles into people? I bet they didn't check to see if she knew how to tie her shoes before she got her vampire certificate, because that's just one of those things that every three year old should know how to do. You know, like TURNING THE COMPUTER ON.