Hyperbole

File this under "conversations you never thought you'd have with your preschooler."

Context: I gave my son (or DS, if you insist) a kiss on the head, but he didn't want it. (He's a preschooler – they can be so fickle.) So he said "suck it back out". I've heard my wife and him play this game before, so I made a sucking noise and said, "there, I sucked it out." He laughed and exclaimed, "you suck differently than Mommy! You should suck like Mommy does!"
What could I say, other than, "Yes, I do suck differently than Mommy. That's just the way it is." This actually went back-and-forth a few times, and I did everything I could to keep from laughing hysterically.

Now I can't decide what is funnier: this conversation, or the many, many conversations surrounding the character from the Toy Story movies, "Woody". (He has several "Woody" toys, of varying sizes. Consider these past gems: "I have the big Woody now!", "Where is my little Woody?", "Can I bring Woody with me?", ad infinitum.)

Posted by gefilte at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Previously I wrote about the eye disorder I am struggling with, called "keratoconus". I mentioned more recently that I felt it was worsening. Well, I went to see the ophthalmologist again, and found out something very interesting. Turns out that the disorder is greatly effected by heat and dryness, and that lots of his patients had been coming to see him about blurrier-than-normal vision. He sent me home with over-the-counter eye drops, and told me to use them when I saw things blurry or felt eyestrain. So I did, and sure enough, it worked. So for now, fewer blurry days. Huzzah!

Posted by gefilte at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Still catching up...

My primary reason for going to Portland this year was to attend OSCON 2006. This was my fourth OSCON (I went to 1999, 2000, and 2005 previously), and as always an excellent conference. Bringing my family along this year made it considerably less stressful than last year – last year I was always worrying about what was going on at home, having left my Casey West, and he told me that not only did he bring his three kids, but he brought babysitting (in the person of his sister-in-law!) He stressed that the 1:1 child/adult ratio was key to success; perhaps when el tercero/la tercera comes along we'll have to find someone to drag to conferences with us...

I met a lot of folks at this conference (I'll spare the names to avoid gratuitous "name-dropping"), some in the "hallway track" and others simply from going to the "right parties". Saw a lot of cool tech, which I might rehash in some later blog entries. OSCON is always such a great conference, and I hope to keep attending every year (given adequate sponsorship.)

Another note: I observed in an earlier use.perl journal entry that Perl 6 development seemed to have stalled out, as far as I could tell. It seems that the problem was that the wrong folks were doing the wrong jobs – since the reshuffling around the time of YAPC::NA things seem to have much more momentum. It's hard to know the future fate of Perl 6, but I'm much more optimistic now about it than before, and expect I will start using some of the Perl 6 stack that is already implemented in Perl 5 soon.

Posted by gefilte at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Back at the end of July, I and my family went to Portland, OR. My main reason for going to Portland was to attend OSCON, and this was the second time I went to OSCON in Portland. (For the record, I've been to OSCON 1999 and 2000 in Monterey, CA and 2005 and 2006 in Portland, OR.) Overall I found the city to be (from my vantage point) extremely livable, and frankly one I'd like to live in.

Click below to read the full entry.

Here are some reasons (by no means an exhaustive list):

• The city is very green
That's the color green. It's very wooded, lots of beautiful green trees everywhere you look. It really is gorgeous
• The city is very Green
That's the green state-of-mind. The city seems has as strong pro-environment and sustainability bent to it. It's not perfect, of course – apparently the city had a Boulder-like anti-development ordinance in the past that it has since relaxed. But the city is truly innovating in this area; I heard on the radio just this week that the City of Portland is moving to 100% renewable energy starting next year. It was also selected as the nation's most sustainable city. Some of my other points support this as well.
• Effective Public Transportation
We were in Portland for ten days, the first five I was attending the conference, the last five was just vacation. We rented a car for only two of those days, ostensibly so we could drive to the coast. The rest of the time we either walked where we wanted to go or took the MAX light rail train. Most of the places we went by car the one day we had it in town were easily accessible by bus as well (though I suspect a bus is a little harder to navigate with a stroller – we never folded up the stroller for a MAX trip.)
• History and charm
The downtown area has lots of beautiful and well-kept old buildings (some older than any I've seen here in Los Angeles.) Much of the neighborhoods in the city core (or at least, on the East side, where I drove around) were very charming, lots of beautiful old homes. Not many for sale though...seems folks are sticking around.
• Affordable housing
This isn't really fair of me actually. I work in Los Angeles, earn Los Angeles pay, so housing in Portland seems far more affordable than Los Angeles. (I don't live in Los Angeles because it's too expensive: but Portland is still cheaper than the Los Angeles suburb I live in.) We looked at houses on a hill overlooking the city (Northeast, not West, for those of you who know the city) and they were priced within our reach.

I could go on, maybe I'll add more later. Needless to say, if it were no impediments to our doing so, we'd be preparing our move right now. But that isn't in the cards right now... we're going to stay put for awhile.

Posted by gefilte at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to pretend to start blogging again.

So since my last entry, I've been to Portland for a conference and vacation, and then got back and had a very time-absorbing project at work to attend to. So now I'm catching up. I think I'll start here.

Posted by gefilte at 01:55 PM | Permalink