Fonts for viewing this site

(This information applied to the old site.)

If your computer has the font Candara installed, this site will use it. If the characters “0a1c2e” are all the same size on this site, you probably have it installed.

Candara and several other fonts are included with Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, both of which cost money. However, you can also get these fonts by installing the free Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

If you are on a Mac, you’d probably have to find a computer running Windows, install one of the products listed above, and copy the fonts from there to your Mac. I doubt that’s allowed by the license, though.

The Squirrel Chronicles

From Wikipedia

A year or two ago, I noticed that there was a lot of activity going on above the baby room. I mentioned something to Brad about it, but he didn’t seem too concerned since it wasn’t affecting us too much. Then, during the winter months, the scratching and pitter-patter noises began again — but this time, I could hear them in my walk-in closet (where I sit and do my scrapbooking). It was pretty noisy, but once again, Brad didn’t appear too concerned. The morning when the squirrel(s) woke us up with their “talking” and excessive noisiness, Brad asked me to take care of it.

Apparently there are a lot of companies out there that take care of these critters. Unfortunately, I think I chose the most ineffective (aka least expensive) one. It cost $100 for the squirrel guy (Bill) to come out and do an initial consultation. Most others charged more than this, or more for each squirrel (or other critter) caught. He immediately found two half-dollar (at most) sized holes on two sides of our house, leading into our attic. Squirrel Guy definitely found traces of squirrel food debris in the front portion of the attic. Apparently this was the work of the notorious red squirrel (a squirrel that’s pretty small, red, and looks like a baby) which is known in the wild, wild world of animals for being a nuisance.

About 4 weeks ago, Squirrel Guy set up a couple of lethal traps with peanuts all over them in the front portion of our attic. The next morning, we didn’t awaken to any sounds. We were excited. Squirrel Guy said he’d return the next day but didn’t. So, I called to get him out to our house, secretly hoping our ordeal was finally over. Upon his examination, he found that the squirrel hadn’t even touched the food. He left, but forgot to tell me when he’d return. After two days of no Squirrel Guy, I called the office again. He returned to find, once again no trap set off. We decided to try the back portion of the attic, where the scratching noises seemed to be originating from. Squirrel Guy said he’d be back on Wednesday morning to check it out. Of course, he didn’t show up. He arrived Thursday. Nothing. He said he’d be back on Saturday morning, and if nothing was caught, he would just patch up the holes (and charge us $50 of course).

Well, Squirrel Guy didn’t call and didn’t show up that Saturday morning. In fact, he didn’t show up the entire next week. Since I was pretty busy that week, I didn’t bother calling until the following Monday. By then I was irate. I called the main number, and received some apologies and then Squirrel Guy’s cell number. Then I called Squirrel Guy and complained. His excuse was that there had been a lot of new customers for him to see. In addition, he added that he was an airhead when it came to schedules. He promised me he’d be at our house the next morning before 10am. Thank goodness for him, he showed up on time. Of course, no squirrel had even touched the food. He was afraid to patch up the holes because he feared that the squirrel would just puncture more. So he set up traps with peanuts and vanilla wafers right next to the hole above the area where I was hearing the most scratching.

Two days later …. nothing! Finally, Squirrel Guy decided to set up a live trap outside, under one of our trees. On Tuesday morning, I noticed that the trap had moved about 3 feet to the left, and was discharged. I called Squirrel Guy to let him know. By the next morning, the trap had moved another 2 feet. Squirrel Guy returned the trap underneath the tree and placed a brick on top — ha!

Later that afternoon, I noticed that not our red squirrel, but a regular squirrel had gotten itself encased in the trap. He seemed quite upset as he kept digging, trying to get out. I felt horrible! Poor guy was probably hungry and thirsty, and he barely fit inside the trap! It was already 4:45pm, and I couldn’t get ahold of Squirrel Guy. So, after consulting with Amy and Lisa, I decided to give him some walnuts, Ritz crackers, and bird seed. Since there was no way in heck that I was about to open the cage to place water inside, I made two holes into a gallon of water and stuck two straws inside. The poor squirrel got some water out of the straw, but then after gnawing on it, the straw came right out of the gallon. I tried calling Squirrel Guy again around 8pm. He called back, and said he’d just release the guy since he wasn’t our main target. I feared that there was a chance that this could possibly be our aggressor, so I asked Squirrel Guy to release him to the wild. Of course I would be charged, but I just wanted to experiment and see if this could be our trouble maker. Plus, this squirrel was mad, and I didn’t want him in our yard any more after capturing him!

So here we are, back to square one. The cage is empty. I haven’t heard any scratching yet since Wednesday night, but I have a feeling we will soon.

20 quadrillion quadrillion electron masses

I don’t remember exactly what I weighed around the holidays — I know it was 223-point-something — so I’ve decided to declare that, since my weight is now 183-point-something, I have officially lost 40 pounds.

The logician in me thinks it’s not really that big a milestone for a couple of reasons. First of all, 40 isn’t that special of a number. Sure, it ends in a zero, but only because we use a decimal system. If people had had, say, twelve fingers (fun fact — hexadactyly is autosomal dominant!), we’d probably be using a duodecimal system, in which case a number like base-10 40 wouldn’t be that interesting. And what exactly is a pound, anyway? It’s pretty arbitrary.

The logician in me can be a real Captain Bringdown.

Influenza

We are a flu-ridden family. I came down with it last Sunday. Helen and Katrina started showing symptoms on Thursday just as I was starting to feel better. Runny nose, aching, and prolonged fever (mine was four days) are the main symptoms. This is not an illness you want.

Elena, who got her flu shot a few months ago, has been perfectly fine. Helen tried to get Katrina vaccinated at another time, but they had run out before she arrived.

How to raise, then dash, a friend's hopes

I’m a software developer at Autodesk. I’ve worked on Inventor since around 2003 (give or take a year).

One decent way to judge a company is to look at how likely its employees are to refer friends and family. Me? I’ve referred three people over the past few years. One person didn’t have the right skill set for the open position, another had to take another job because of time constraints (the company gave him an absurdly short amount of time to accept their offer and he didn’t have enough time to shop around), and the third … ah, the third.

The third is a good friend of mine. (Wait, that’s not quite right. He stood in our wedding. He’s godfather to one of our daughters, for cryin’ out loud. That’s beyond “good friend”.) And I thought he would be abso-friggin’-lutely perfect for a position Autodesk has just created.

Well, to make a long story short, his current employer told him no. Why should that matter, you ask? Apparently his employer has some sort of secret agreement with Autodesk where Autodesk won’t hire their employees. Unless they give permission, that is.

So he asked for permission.

They denied it.

But that’s not all! They also said that because they now knew about his desire to work at Autodesk, if he quit, they’d contact Autodesk and make sure he wouldn’t get hired there for a year.

Incredible.

Below 190

189.6 pounds. I’ve lost around 34 pounds!

Hidden features in digital alarm clock radios

When I was younger — I’m not sure how young, though I’m certain it was before high school — I was intrigued by my digital alarm clock radio. It was the kind where pressing the “Sleep” button turned on the radio and displayed 0:59 as long as you held the button. It would play for 59 minutes, then shut off automatically.

Back then, I discovered the following features:

• If I held “Sleep” down, then pressed the “Hour” button, it changed to 1:59. If I pressed “Minute”, it would decrement the minutes. Thus, it was possible to set it to play for, say, ten minutes, then shut off.
• Holding down “Alarm” and pressing “Sleep” button would display the last digit of the minutes and the seconds. Holding “Minute” would cause the seconds to stop. Each press of “Hour” would reset the seconds to zero, and if the seconds were 30 or greater, it would increment the minutes. Thus, it was possible to set the clock exactly and resynchronize it when necessary.
• Pressing both “Hour” and “Minute” while holding down “Alarm” reset the alarm time to midnight.

The software in these clocks must be available on a standard chip somewhere, because the clock in Elena’s room and the Dora the Explorer clock in Katrina’s room have the same features.

UPDATE: There is a common chip! Actually, several manufacturers make chips with these features. The NTE NTE2062 [35k PDF], the Sanyo LM8560B [789k PDF], the UTC LM8560 [92k PDF], and the TI TMS3450NL have these features listed on their data sheets.

Back from Děčín

By the way, I’m back from Děčín. The trip was uneventful, which I believe is a synonym for “successful” when it comes to international travel.

Facts about Mr. Bear

Here are some facts about Katrina’s teddy bear, Mr. Bear.

• Mr. Bear is a Ty Pluffie called Slumbers.
• Mr. Bear was purchased by John McKenzie, a friend of Brad’s, and given to Helen and Brad at Katrina’s baby shower. (John was Brad’s manager at TPI and is now part owner of Majority Controls LLC.)
• When she was still learning to talk, Katrina gave Mr. Bear the first name “Beebeebee”, pronounced [βi βi ˈβiː] in IPA. Pronouncing it “bee-bee-BEE” or “vee-vee-VEE” is close, though using voiced bilabial fricatives (a sound between a ‘b’ and a ‘v’) is better.
• Some of Mr. Bear’s friends and family, originally purchased as possible Mr. Bear stand-ins, have the same first name as Mr. Bear. (Brad: “Hey, you sat on Beebeebee!” Katrina: “No, that’s Beebeebee’s friend, Beebeebee.”)
• According to Katrina, Mr. Bear is a girl, though masculine and feminine pronouns are often used interchangeably.

(Comment from the old site:)

Will the "real" Mr Bear please stand up?

Submitted by Helen Town on Wed, 03/07/2007 - 1:28pm.

I think Mr Bear’s CURRENT picture should be displayed as well, for comparison purposes.

Coming this fall (sometime around October 5, 2007)

(On the old site, there was a countdown to October 5, 2007 here.)