.plan

A funny thing happens when you try for over two and a half years to
have a child: the concept of never creeps in from the side. After
a while it does more than slink around in the background. It rears
its ugly head and faces you head on.

What if I never get the chance? What if all these attempts, all
this effort, end in nothing but failure?

You prepare for the worst. Adoption is not something we just
considered. It is something we researched. I have no doubt
that I could love an adopted son as my own but what if we can
never do it ourselves. What if?

This only begins to explain how incredibly lucky I feel this
day. The child sleeping silently in the room behind me is a blessing
indeed, a treasure whose first cry answered the prayers of
his mother and father.

As I unwrap the first of, what I hope, is many father’s day presents
today, I know that none will ever come close to the gift God gave me
just a short time ago. His gift allows me to celebrate this
day and I thank Him.

I was always surprised that Metallica took mp3s so personal. It was their battle. Lars Ulrich was the mascot. Napster was their target.

As a casual fan I found their stance a bit insulting. Their tactics, which included fear and lawyers was more akin to those who watch lovingly over their gardeners, not a band whose mere appearance could make parents run for cover. What happened to them? Success had robbed them of their hair and their credibility.

I don’t think they anticipated the backlash they received.

Years later, I surprised myself when I picked up their new album, St.Anger. I thought I was done with them. They didn’t want us to touch mp3s. If I did listen to them, I thought for sure it would be exclusively through my computer speakers.

Then they put together a package that did exactly what a retail release should; it encouraged fans to purchase their music. Let’s forget the negative for a while and give the fans what they really want.

Here’s a quick list of what their new CD includes:

• the CD, of course
• a DVD of them playing every song on the CD
• a code to unlock downloadable music on the internet

The CD itself is good. I wouldn’t say great. It is much closer to their roots than previous albums, sporting a sound closer to your parent’s garage than the classical stylings of S & M.

The DVD is a great extra and, I should mention, is one of the biggest reasons I purchased the CD. I’m heading to their Summer Sanitarium tour in about a month. I thought it would be great to get in an advanced viewing. The actual content doesn’t include a lot of bells and whistles but that doesn’t matter. You get to sit in on a jam session. For fans, this is a treat.

The downloadable content surprised me the most. Three live concerts are available for download, split into 40 or so mp3s. Scrumptious. Especially given the fact that Metallica has never released a live album in the stores. I have a lot of music to listen to over the next couple of weeks.

Other bands should take note (some, like Eminem, already have). These guys did it right. A shiny CD isn’t enough anymore. Throw in a couple of extras. We want to buy your CD. Give us more reasons to do so.

Leaving work early to mow the yard is not normally something I look
forward to. Today was no exception.

But I did it anyway. Cambell’s dedication is this weekend and,
as expected, a little shindig will occur at our home afterwards.
The yard, along with the rest of the house, needed to be in
tip top shape. Mission accomplished, at least as far as the
outside of the house is concerned.

I didn’t leave it at just the yard, though. I applied the
weed whacker to the sidewalks and the fence. I used my
chainsaw on a stick to get at those low lying branches.
I also trimmed both the bushes in front of the house and
the small pine trees that adorn the space between the
sidewalk and our home.

I don’t trim the bushes all that often. When I do, my bushes
quake with fear. It’s not that I normally do a bad job. It’s
just that – how can I say it – I’m a little aggressive. I
don’t mess around. There’s a buzzing noise, a smell of
burning wood, and it is quickly over.

I trim the pine trees even less. I believe the wife was the
last one to touch these specimens. They involve a little
more effort – after all, they are much bigger than the bushes –
and a bit more artistic talent. They sit in the front of the yard.
Folks that drive by can actually see them.

My trimming didn’t start very smoothly. I hacked and hacked and
discovered one tree had quite a large hole in the front.
There isn’t much you can do. Unlike a Christmas tree, there’s
no way to turn the bare spot towards the corner. Fixing the hole was much
like trying to fix a bad haircut. Cut a little bit here and there and you only make things worse.

My other trees frowned at me and said, “you aren’t going to do
me like that. Are you?”

Thankfully, the other trees were much luckier.
No embarrassing scars will haunt their youth. As for the
ugly duckling, we can only hope that we can keep the
heckling to a minimum. It’ll grow back. We swear.

Early in the study of economics, students are often confronted with an interesting presupposition: if you don’t have it, you don’t want it. The premise being that if you really wanted something, it would already be in your figurative pocket, even if it meant structuring your entire life around attaining the prize. What we normally perceive as want is just a bit of whining about the conscious choices we’ve already made. By soliciting a new study on software piracy, the Business Software Alliance added a new twist: if you want it and don’t have it, you’ve pirated it.

Here’s a snippet of the Yahoo news article that talks about the rigorous methods of the study:

Basically, any gap between what they say you need and what you have is filled with thievery and deception. Wouldn’t the used car salesmen of the universe just love to capture that logic in a bottle? I can hear the RIAA dialing the phone right now.

Just imagine if this theory could be applied to other industries. You pirated that fancy sports car. Didn’t you? Best Buy is just full of folks pirating those big screen high definition televisions. I’m pirating that mansion on the beach right now.

I’d say this study was really an analysis of the simple laws of supply and demand but that would be irresponsible. Any analysis should include hard facts and rely more on long term trends than the results of a tarot card reading.

From a business perspective, what the study should tell the BSA is why these companies pirate their software if, in fact, any of them are doing so. Supply and demand are way out of whack. Prices are much too high for what is being offered. Why should we pay $399 for Office XP? Word 6.0 suits us just fine.

The results of this study lie in the land of fiction, alongside astrology and the novels of Harry Potter on the believability scale. And I believe J.K. Rowling makes a whole lot more sense.

Way back in October,
I took some time to
review
the television I was watching, or planned to watch, in the coming season. Now,
that all the season finales have passed and television has become a wasteland
of late night Three’s Company reruns, I thought it might be fun to run through
my personal list again, comparing what I thought then to how I feel
things really turned out.

For those that still have some shows queued up in the TIVO, watch out. I
can’t promise that there won’t be some spoilers ahead. Travel your
unwatched shows with caution. Here goes.

Sunday

The Sopranos
(prev)
I started the season noting that the pace of the show had slowed
a bit. Just wait, I said, things will pick up. Well, they did
and they didn’t. The crescendo that ensued resulted in a pitched
battle between husband and wife, with far less body bags to wade
through than a normal season of good ole’ Tony. It’s still one
of my favorite shows but I can’t wait to see all the folks that
have been playing with fire finally get burned. It should be
a short, two year wait before season five allows me to do so.

Curb Your Enthusiasm
(prev)
This silly little comedy gave me just what I expected: a silly
little comedy. It doesn’t pretend to be something that it isn’t.
The final episode of the season, which featured an impressive
burst of profanity, made me howl. I don’t remember the last time
a half hour of comedy made me do that.

The Simpsons
The Simpsons was a late season addition, largely brought on by
a Christmas present from a friend. The DVDs of the first season
reintroduced me to the show I always wanted to watch but never did.
I’m glad. The old ones are classics. The new ones will be
classics the moment they age. The love the creators have for
these characters shine through, even after all this time.

Fox recently signed the papers for two more seasons of Homer,
making Simpsons the

longest running comedy series ever. That’s a whole lot
of DVDs I’ll have to buy.

Malcolm in the Middle
Malcolm is a show I’ve followed from the beginning but somehow missed
the cut in October. My VCR is more than happy to keep recording
long after the Simpsons is over and I’m more than happy to speed
through its commercials. I still enjoy this one, even as the
main character quickly passes puberty by.

Monday

Drew Carey
(prev)
I’m sad to say that Drew jumped the shark by jumping all the
way to the sad graveyard that is primetime Fridays. Kate ran
off to one of my favorite shows, Scrubs, and you get the feeling
that the writers are just out of juice. Maybe a summer relaunch,
which will move it back to Wednesdays, will do it good. I have my doubts.

Whose Line is it Anyway?
(prev)
This show also got caught up in Drew’s midseason move. As a result,
I don’t remember the last time I saw an episode. It’s
too bad. I miss it.

Tuesday

Frasier
(prev)
I predicted that once 24 began, I’d have trouble finding the time to
watch Frasier. It was a good prediction. I haven’t seen an episode
since. Oddly enough, it was the cancellation of the show after it,
Hidden Hills, that really took Frasier off my schedule. It hardly
seemed worth it to tape just a half hour of television.

Hidden Hills
(prev)
I was sorry to see her
go. I mean it go. And the shows that replaced it are sad. Not that I’d
know personally. I’m on strike from its timeslot until she – I mean it – returns.
I can only hope that the phrase “Returning Soon”, which can be found on its
web site, mean that it, in fact, is returning….soon.

24
The best suspense show on TV came to the end just a week or so ago.
Some say the first season was better. Some say the second. I
call it a draw. It did feel a bit more uneven, though, with some
episodes far outpacing the others. I hope that they leave Kim
home for the next one. Her adventures, which included being nearly
killed no less than six times this year, get harder and harder to swallow.
I thought Jack had a bad day.

Wednesday

My Wife and Kids
(prev)
I said that I rarely fit it into my viewing schedule and that trend
continues. While I don’t know if it will ever make my ‘A’ list,
I’ll catch it now and then, particularly during the summer of reruns.

Ed
(prev)
Will it be cancelled or won’t it? Ed, my favorite show and
a fellow victim (see Drew) of a midseason move to Fridays,
had its season fall under a shadow of renewal doubts.
Thankfully, it will be around for another year, making
the season finale, which wrapped up all sorts of loose
ends just in case, all the more interesting. Let’s see
how Carol and Ed do now that they are together. And,
come on people, watch this show. Do it now. Don’t make
me come over there.

The West Wing
(prev)
Another strong season of a quite likable and (obviously) fictional
democrat reign, which ended with way more questions than answers.
I enjoyed the season although I’m sure you could hear the head
slapping when 24 beat them to the punch with their use of the,
previously unknown to me, 25th amendment. Two replaced presidents
in one season of television is two too many, if you ask me.
You didn’t? Well let’s move on then.

Thursday

Friends
(prev)
I’m just not down with the whole Rachel and Joey storyline.
I suppose part of me still has her attached to Ross, regardless
of the fact that he has moved on. I also thinks it makes her
a bit more of a ho; she’s quickly making her way around her circle
of friends. They have one more season to correct it, though.
I’ll be watching. I always am.

Scrubs
(prev)
The new time slot for Scrubs was both a blessing and a curse.
The blessing came in the form of ratings; they were spectacular.
The curse came during sweeps when NBC, in a fit to give us
as much Friends as we could handle, preempted the show on
a regular basis. Come on, NBC. You are going to need
something to carry the torch once Friends has finally
flamed out. It should be this show. Give it some respect.

ER
(prev)
The episodes of this season – the last of which still resides on
my VCR – displayed a marked improvement over the last one.
Cleaning out a lot of old cast members – including good old Mark Green –
seemed to give them the opportunity to take more chances, rather
than rest on their laurels. I’m glad. I’m still a viewer.
I didn’t think I would be.

Survivor
(prev)
My guilty pleasure still manages to entertain me. I imagine
the tribe politics is what intrigues me. Maybe I should have
tried my hand at psychiatry.

CSI
(prev)
I mentioned that the premiere was typical. I can’t say the
rest of the season was much different. Thankfully, typical
is still pretty good with regard to their approach to a crime
scene. It still feels different, particularly because its the
only show of its type that I watch.

Push Nevada
(prev)
The odd, drawn out storyline of this one put it right where you expect:
the trash bin. It never got a chance to tell its story. I don’t
really care. That tells me all I needed to know about it.

Friday

Firefly
(prev)
Did Firefly make it past the first episode? If it did, it didn’t
make it much longer. I never made time to watch it and neither
did anyone else. Ever get the feeling that we’ll never get to see
a decent science fiction show that doesn’t include the Star Trek license?
Me too.

John Doe
(prev)
Is this one still around? I wouldn’t know. I only
caught the premiere. The concept – a man that knows
everything but who he is – doesn’t sound like it would
work over the long haul. I’ll never know.

Fastlane
This show, which was a midseason addition for me, earned my
trust because it was unapologetic about its content.
Here’s some boobs. Here’s some fast cars. Here’s some explosions.
We’re not going to bore you with any kind of storyline. And you’ll
always have Tiffany to look at. I say was because
it has basically been cancelled. How can this be? It should hit the
sweet spot for the lonely guys that spend
their Friday nights in front of the TV.

That’s it. No Saturday. I need some time to myself.
Technically, I don’t watch anything on Sunday either. I just
make good use of my VCR.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad season of TV. I am a bit worried
about next season, though. More and more shows that I like
quietly disappear from the network lineup and aren’t replaced
with anything too interesting. At least NBC
renewed Ed
and I have a PVR just aching to record something. All hope is
not lost.

The local weatherman said that since April 1st, we have had 35 days of rain. Seattle had 34. It’s been two days since then, so we are now up to 37. I’m so glad that we still have the lead.

He also mentioned that we had four inches of rain to Seattle’s one. I believe it. Mushrooms have begun to grow in large quantities in my front yard. The dog now waits for me wipe his paws when he comes inside. The weather around these parts make you long for a good drought.

It puts one heck of a damper on your Memorial Day weekend. The malls are packed solid as there is nothing else to do. A nice layer of fog accompanied us both to and from church. We could cook out on Monday but the muddy backyard makes that unlikely.

The misty air makes you just want to settle down for a nice nap. That’s just what Cambell is doing. I wish I could join him. I think his mom just did.

While doing some surfing for Trans Am links for a previous blog, I was surprised to discover that my Trans Am is now considered a “Heritage Car” by Pontiac. This heritage designation means that Pontiac has finally made good on its threat to stop making the Firebird. I had heard the rumors. Now they are true. I must admit to thinking that it is a good thing.

The obvious reason is that my car has just became a bit more special. American muscle cars are a dying breed. The Chevrolet Camaro can likewise no longer be found. The Mustang is just a shadow of what it once was, with Ford just recently offering a standard one with any real power. Scarcity can be a good thing, provided you are one of the haves, not the have nots.

I could worry that mechanics may get harder to find but I doubt that the maintenance work for these beasts will dry up anytime soon. Besides, I always have an “in house” grease monkey (hi dad) for emergencies.

What I really wonder is how any potential change in value (real or imagined) in my car will effect any future vehicle purpose. I’ve told the wife that I’d love to hold onto my car when I purchase another one, provided it is financially feasible. With a more family oriented car on the distant horizon (very distant – I’m not anxious to take on another car payment), it would be nice to keep a fun car around for those warm spring nights. Yep, that’s my driveway sporting a vehicle under a plastic blanket.

Oddly, enough, I believe a boost in value makes me more likely to sell. I take good care of my car but I’d worry about exposure to the elements over the long haul. Rust is thine enemy, especially when preservation is suddenly found on my list of priorities. I already worry plenty about depreciation. I need no extra pressure.

But you never know. Maybe the lure of one day parading my car at a local classic car get together will hook me. Vroom, vroom.

Yesterday I mailed away the last car payment for the Trans Am, effectively
completing both the largest and dumbest purchase of my life in one fell swoop.
Let me explain.

My Trans Am was the gift I gave myself for completing college. I researched
it for months. A Super Bowl commercial first brought it to my attention.
The Firebird had a sexy new body. And it could eat other cars.
I had to have one.

I was very surprised to find that it fit within my price range. Somewhere
along the line I had determined that I would need about $20,000 for
a nice, reliable car. The base Firebird barely missed that mark.
The Trans Am, basically the Firebird with everything, was still within
sight. I could swing it. My living expenses were suddenly much below
my salary.

The test drive sealed the deal. Fifth gear, fourth gear, third gear –
it’s all good at fifty five miles an hour. My current car at the time,
a 1979 Mercedes 240D, only made the trip more impressive. It couldn’t hold a candle to this rocket ship I was driving.

Negotiations went smoothly, despite the fact that some factors worked against me. The spring air meant I had lots of competition for a rapidly decreasing pool of available cars. My requirements, T-tops and a manual transmission, only made the situation worse. You wouldn’t believe how few Trans Ams come with a stick between the car’s front seats. We have a gold one in Indiana. Want to pick it up?

I paid well below sticker price but the price itself was not the issue. The issue was the financing. At the time, I thought I had two choices: spend the summer saving for a sizable down payment or accept a hefty car payment. The dealer presented me with a third option, called a balloon payment.

A balloon payment essentially means that you pay off only a portion of the total amount over the length of the loan, waiting to pay the rest until the end. There is a piper to pay and it is your very last payment. The upside is that your monthly payments become more manageable. The downside is that you accept an interest rate hike in addition to still having to face your worst fears at the end. (I should note that there are options other than paying the a large sum of money at the end of the loan, including selling your car back to dealer for what you still owed them. However, these options weren’t on my radar screen. I wasn’t renting. I was buying.)

On that day, a balloon payment made sense. Instead of spending the summer saving for a down payment, I could save for the balloon payment. It would be sort of a down payment in reverse, with the added bonus of T-tops all summer long. I signed on the dotted line and regretted it only a month later.

I won’t share the details – those close to me can probably figure it out – but things changed. I wouldn’t be able to stash a large sum of money away on top of my car payment. It just wasn’t going to happen. I could, however, make my payments and add a bit on top to ensure that when piper came knocking, it was only a light tap. I’d have the large monthly payments that I abhorred along with the bonus interest rate. Lucky me. Sometimes I would remind myself that I drive my dream car to work every day. It helped.

I’ve debated that purchase many times over the years
and one moment always comes to mind. Early one morning after no more than
three months of payments, I was driving to work like I always do, heading
down the speedy lanes of interstate 95. Suddenly, a car in the far
left lane swerved into mine at a sharp angle.
I reacted by immediately darting one lane to the right and moving very quickly
back again to avoid a sure accident with the car on my left and a car
already to my right. The incident took less than a second at over
70 miles an hour. In that second, the wheels of my car screeched in protest
as I spun the wheel to one side and the other.

I remember thinking quite clearly that my Mercedes could not have made
that maneuver. This machine, whose payments I had already begun to lament,
may have saved my life. If that is true, it was worth every penny,
financing and all. Every penny.

Last weekend I made a bold move on the computer front: I purchased a new video card. A visit to the computer show isn’t complete without a purchase of some kind. This purchase was a doosey. A brand new Radeon 9700 Pro All-in-Wonder now sits in this very computer.

For those who aren’t familiar with the 9700 Pro, it can easily be referred to as a speed demon. It’s a monster, churning byte after bite into screens of glory. High resolution gaming is now the norm. Anti-aliasing is no longer an option reserved for slide shows. It’s reality, combined with frame rates that scream.

I’ll spare you the most of the geeky details but, rest assured, I’m impressed. I’ll now run my Nascar races anti-aliased at 1280×1024 and watch the cars fall behind at over 70 frames/sec. Freelancer will stare back at me with 1920000 pixels at a time. Battlefield 1942 will look even sweeter than before. Morrowind‘s extended vistas are finally available to me.

The All-in-Wonder part of the equation is also quite a treat. My cable feed now has a new input, which turns my PC into a high storage Personal Video Recorder (PVR). It’s a TIVO without the monthly fees. Pause that thing. I have to pee.

An interesting side note to all of this is what happened to the card that previously rested in my PC. It now sits at work along with the second monitor it powered. My Radeon 8500 supports dual monitors out of the box, something that the integrated piece of junk in my work PC couldn’t hope to do. That’s right. I have some extra room on my desk at home and a two-headed beast at work.

From a functional perspective, this set up makes a lot more sense. Dual monitors at home was a novelty. Having that extra monitor at work will be extremely useful. All that extra screen real estate will definitely be put to good use. Besides, the density of geeks is much greater at work. It will finally be in an environment where it can be appreciated.

As a new parent, one of the things you quickly notice is how family friendly your old hot spots are. For example, the wife and I were quite impressed with Don Pablos. They invited the three of us in and offered a cool little contraption that would cradle our child’s baby seat. Similarly, Texas Steaks offered us a booth. Our little child stayed perched atop that table, resting while mom and dad ate some shrimp and ribs. Today, I was surprised to find a place nestled in the heart of Baltimore that provided an experience quite the opposite. Unfortunately for us that place, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, was our destination.

It seems that the Aquarium, in all their wisdom, has decided that strollers are the bane of the universe. These evil little devices clog the hallways and generally make it difficult to get anywhere. Kids on wheels? I don’t think so. Park those suckers right by there by the door. They’ll be there when you return with tired arms and a struggling child against your chest. Trust us.

The cold wind of the inner harbor battered off the ticket window as I took this in. Let’s see. I took off today. We gathered our things and child into the car. We picked up a friend and their young child and drove to the inner harbor. We found a parking garage and made the trek to the Aquarium where the aforementioned wind was quickly turning the face of my friend’s daughter blue. I don’t think so.

Disappointed, we turned away.

I have to say, I was surprised. The Aquarium must certainly attract a family crowd. Asking me to leave my possessions behind and use (what I believe is a rented) public (almost assuredly disease carrying) carrier isn’t my idea of friendly. Maybe we should have read the fine print. Might I suggest a new sign, right next to the ticket prices:

We didn’t let this spoil our day, though. We found our aquarium in a new location: Outdoor World in Arundel Mills. It may not have had sharks but I saw fish. See? We took pictures. In my book, that counts.

We spent most of our morning up at the mall, letting the dreary weather swirl around outside. We had some lunch and visited the Children’s Place, a store I will likely return to for both shopping and playing. The center of their store is one big playground.

We might not have had the sights and sounds we expected but, as usual, the company was good. Cambell got some fresh air and I didn’t spend the day slumped over my keyboard (right now doesn’t count). I’ll just have to remember that next time I start thinking about fish, I better start thinking about bringing my backpack.