Archive for March, 2004

Augh! Or, parenting a late-teenage boy Older Son…

Published on March 12, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

Augh! Or, parenting a late-teenage boy

Older Son (17, a high school senior) got out at noon today because it’s the last day of mid-term exams. Teachers have the afternoon free to submit grades. I had arranged to pick him up at school; he could not have the car today because I had an exam in the city. I got there about 12:07 or so, just within seconds of when classes dismissed. We had arranged to meet by the science building. I waited for 20 minutes. No Older Son. I walked over to the broadcasting room, on the off chance he had stayed after to work. No Older Son. I walked back to the car. No Older Son. By this time, I had been waiting a half hour. I went home.

No messages. I waited at home for about two and a half hours. (Surfing the web, and doing kitchen stuff, but I did not leave the house.) No calls. I went to the bank and stopped by the school. Not there. I saw the broadcasting teacher who gave me pointers to some phone numbers. I went to the grocery store. I came home. Not there. No phone calls.

After consulting with DH, I called the friends. They had not seen him since school let out. OK, now I was scared. Before I had been irked, and vaguely worried, but now the only people I thought he would be with did not know where he was. I called DH again. We agreed that the police would not have been willing to do anything so soon. I cried. DH said he would go fetch Small Son and come home.

Two minutes later, Older Son came home. He had been hanging out at a friend’s house just around the corner. I was so relieved. I cried. He apologized. Profusely. I was so relieved. I know, I’m repeating myself, but I was so relieved. After assessing the situation, I explained to him my POV. He should have called. I was annoyed when I thought he was just hanging with his friends, and scared when I thought he wasn’t (because I called them) and relieved when he came home safe. He said, “and now you’re upset because you’ve calmed down.” I said, “No, but if you do that again you lose the car for two weeks.”

Unlike Miranda, I am pleased to mix my good news and bad news. DH got another one-year (nine-month) appointment at the University where he works. And Older Son was accepted at Louisiana State. He seemed pleased about that, which is good news…he had been unhappy about going there, until he saw the place. Now he seems not only resigned to attending there, but happily anticipating it.

We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo Another perfect …

Published on March 11, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

Another perfect day in Southeast Louisiana. Sunny skies, cool breezes, high 60’s. Today, because I’m unemployed, I helped chaperone the little people at Younger Son’s “school” on a field trip to the Audobon Zoo.

We left the school at 9:30 a.m. and rode on a school bus down Broadway in New Orleans. Even that was a joy - lovely older houses, beautifully kept, with a grassy median, adjoining the campuses of Tulane and Loyola of New Orleans. We arrived at the zoo quickly and efficiently, which is good when traveling with 30 three and four year-olds children The zoo is a gem. Beautiful landscaping, interesting animals, and plenty of places for the kids to just play when they are tired of looking at things. They really liked Monkey Hill, which is just a thing to climb…but it has a net bridge and a net slide at the end. I didn’t know that. Ahem. I hope nobody photographed me.

My favorite animals were the pair of juvenile Amur leopards, just 10 months old. A zoo employee was in the gap between the people fence and the animal fence, and they were very lively. Talk about fangs! They stalked this guy, batting at the cage and roaring at him. Most of the zoo animals I’ve observed are pretty lethargic, and when they actually do anything it’s entertaining. These cats weren’t just doing something, though…they were asserting themselves. “We are Fierce Creatures, and you are close to our space, though on the other side of the fence. Mistake us not: were it not for these very strong wire bars, you would be Dinner!”

After the zoo, we went down to Riverview Drive, which is a park-like setting on the Mississippi River levee. There were lots of people tanning there. The natives thought it was too cold, but as a Yankee, I understood the impulse. After lunch, the kids played on a playground for a bit, then we went back to school.

Not a MetaBlog I’m very interested in the concept…

Published on March 10, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

Not a MetaBlog

I’m very interested in the concept of “meta.” I first got a grip on the meaning of the term when my son was reading Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse Five.” He told me that it was “meta fiction,” or fiction about fiction. This was the “light bulb” for me that explained to me (finally) the meaning of the term metadata. In an old program, MS FoxPro, you can copy the structure of a data table using the “extended” keyword, and it will create a table containing the names of the fields and the specifics about them for the table you copied - data about data.

I have since run across a number of other uses of the prefix meta. My personal favorite was a baseball cap I got from a co-worker who was getting rid of stuff. Shell bought a lot of customized “perks” for the crew when they would start a new well project. This hat had prices on it based on quantity and number of lines and colors of custom print. It was a meta hat - a hat about hats.

Another really cool meta object is Rob Walker’s Meta Poll. This is a link, so check it out.

I read someone’s description of the Nauvoo temple that made me think that Nauvoo could be construed as a meta temple. Probably not.

If you know of any other good metas, let me know. Meta law? A meta blog? A meta journal?

A Pink Surprise We bought our house in July of 20…

Published on March 9, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

A Pink Surprise

We bought our house in July of 2002. It’s a decent house, nothing fancy, middle-class neighborhood. We had some shrubs out front that stayed leafy all winter, which was nice. Then, at the very beginning of March, my shrubs started showing some flowers. Lovely pinky-coral flowers. Within a couple of weeks, the shrubs were COVERED with beautiful pinky coral flowers. By the end of the month, the flowers were gone.

At the same time, I noticed flowers on shrubs like mine all over my little city. In all kinds of colors! White and pink and red and pinkish-red and purple. Everywhere! The whole town burst into color for the month of March. By the end of the month, it was all gone.

What WERE these things? I did some research, and found them on the web. Azaleas. Evergreen azaleas. A botanist friend described them as a “once-a-year glory.” This year, when they are done blooming, I will trim back the evergreen stems so as to have more and more concentrated blooms next year.

We did not know that our shrubs would burst into colors for the month of March when we bought the house. It was a beautiful and delightful surprise.

Our household size has been reducing gradually ove…

Published on March 8, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

Our household size has been reducing gradually over the last 24 hours. This time yesterday, there were seven of us. By 4:30 p.m., we were down to four people again, as my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson had gone back to sunny South Florida. Older son left for school at 7:45 a.m. today (3). Then DH and younger son left for the day. It’s just me, now. So quiet! I like it a lot.

Today I’m going to make a follow-up phone call about a job, and I’m going to work on my demonstration web pages. I’m downloaded a free trial for MacroMedia Flash MX 2004 Professional, so I’m going to read some of the tutorials and then work on a flash opening page for my web site. But not today. Today, just databases, because that’s what people will want done, and that’s what I know how to do.

Maybe I’ll do the dishes and cook dinner, too.

I’ve had a couple of wonderful days in a row, now….

Published on March 6, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

I’ve had a couple of wonderful days in a row, now. My daughter and her family have been visiting since Thursday. Friday my daughter, SIL and Older Son went to Baton Rouge to visit LSU. My Older Son is probably going to go there, ’cause it’s free, and my SIL has applied to law school there and wanted to check it out. They were gone most of the day, and they came home impressed. What a relief! Older Son has been stressed about having to go to school there, but c’mon, dude…it’s FREE. And it’s a good school! Far enough from home that we won’t be popping in on each other, but close enough that he can come visit easily on holidays.

I spent the day with my Younger Son and my grandson. They played happily together all day. Grandson is almost two years old, so I had to change diapers again. Oh, lordy I don’t miss that at all.

Today, all my children, my son-in-law, grandson and I went in to New Orleans for the day. SIL has also applied to law school at Loyola, and wanted to see the place. We parked in the French Quarter and had lunch there. We walked up Bourbon Street, across Canal to St. Charles Ave. and caught the streetcar going uptown. We got off at Loyola. The little boys played at Audobon Park across the street, while the student age folks went to see what they could of the school. Son in law was awestruck.

When people think of New Orleans, they usually think of the French Quarter and drunken debauchery. Oh, and crime and racism. There is another side to New Orleans, though, and that’s Uptown. Beautiful old Victorian Mansions, ancient oaks, attractive young people jogging on the streetcar tracks (easy on the knees, because it’s a flat dirt path), and the streetcar itself, a real-live electric trolley, that goes from the Quarter all the way upriver. It’s beautiful. It certainly didn’t hurt that the weather was superb today (low-mid 70’s, blue skies, puffy clouds, and lots of sunshine).

Louis Armstrong did a song, “Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans,” and on days like today, I never want to live anywhere else. Even though I don’t live there.

I’m going to be setting up a web site for demo’ing…

Published on March 3, 2004 in Miscellany. 0 Comments

I’m going to be setting up a web site for demo’ing my ASP programming skills. This will be yet another twist in my continuing (futile? pointless?) search for a job. I’m a bit concerned, because ASP.NET is way newer than ASP, but my hosting company doesn’t support .NET, and I’ve never programmed in .NET. I think I will just write the ASP stuff, and then when they add .NET (they are looking into it) I can show that, as well.

I think I will write an automation application, and a shopping application. I will not actually do e-commerce, because so much of that has already been done, that you can just buy or steal the code. But I want to show that I know what I’m doing. I will not be able to actually do any work on it until next week, but better late than never.

I actually should have done something like this several months ago. But I am not going to berate myself for not thinking of it sooner. I’m just going to live in the now - I thought of doing it now, and just because I should have thought of it three months ago doesn’t mean I should abandon the idea. It can still help me.