PhoneBoy Says

On Monday, I took the day off. My wife and son were both sick, so I took my daughter somewhere to play. First, I decided that some lunch was in order. So we went to a restaurant. Normally I do Subway, but just wasn't in the mood. Went someplace I had been before, and knew the manager of the place to boot.

Anyway, my daughter and I are sitting in a booth waiting for our food to arrive. I'm sitting on the outer seat, Gracie is sitting next to me between me and the wall. I'm feeding her fishies and cheerios while we wait. Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a pink teddy bear had been tossed into the seat next to my daughter. The guy who did it walked by my booth and said something to me (something along the lines of "for your daughter.") I was a bit nervous that a stranger had given my daughter something randomly, but all I could say to the man was "thank you."

The waitress came up to me a little bit later and told me this guy frequents the bar in this restaurant, loves kids, and keeps a a bunch of these bears in his car to give out to the little kids in the restaurant. Made me feel a little better, but after I thought about, I felt even more weirded out by the whole experience. The guy didn't interact with my daughter at all, but still.Creepy

I remember growing up an episode of Different Strokes where the Gary Coleman character (or one of his friends) had gotten lured in by a child molester. He gave gifts, had all the cool video and pinball games, etc. Yeah, they warned you about all that stuff back then. For all I know, they still do warn about these things on TV shows occasionally. The occasional story about a child molester or rapist on the TV news is enough to keep the danger fresh in my mind, though. This experience made me realize the risk was very real and I need to stay vigilant to make sure nothing like that happens to either of my kids.

I felt so disgusted about the whole experience that I wanted to immediately throw the bear away. A friend of mine reminded me that my daughter was too young to understand and that, hopefully, she'll never have to experience our worst fears. My wife thought there was no reason to throw the bear away. Fair enough, but every time I see that bear, I will be reminded to maintain my vigilance.

You are The Chariot

Triumph, Victory, Overcoming Obstacles.

The chariot is one of the mostcomplex cards to define. On its most basic level, it implies war, astruggle, and an eventual, hard-won victory. Either over enemies,obstacles, nature, the beasts inside you, or to just get what you want.But there is a great deal more to it. The charioteer wears emblems ofthe sun, yet the sign behind this card is the moon. The chariot is allabout motion, and yet it is often shown as stationary. It is a union ofopposites, like the black and white steeds. They pull in differentdirections, but must be (and can be!) made to go together in onedirection. Control is required over opposing emotions, wants, needs,people, circumstances; bring them together and give them a singledirection, your direction. Confidence is also needed and, mostespecially, motivation. The card can, in fact, indicate new motivationor inspiration, which gets a stagnant situation moving again.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

One time I went to visit an urgent care doctor to get some antibiotics for a sinus infection. I briefly talked with the doctor about weight. She had said, about food "but all that bad food tastes so good." That statement came to mind this evening as I was eating a cup full of granola and soy milk a bit after dinner. I was also reminded of some things I saw in this Aspie movie that Daisy uploaded recently.

All of this came together in my mind and I realized what it is that makes me eat more than I should--I enjoy the taste of certain things. More often than not, I am eating something because I enjoy the taste of it and want to keep eating it to keep that taste in my mouth. I have in the past, for instance, eaten a pound of cheddar cheese because it tasted good. Or a whole multi-serving bag of Doritos.

Now granted, I've gotten better at choosing what I actually eat lots of. Instead of eating a whole bunch of Doritos, I'll stand at the counter with a bag of carrots and the container of hummus, and chow down. But the fact is, even healthy things are bad for you in large enough quantities. What I almost wish I could do was just turn off my desire for tastes. I almost want to be so that food was simply not enjoyable to me. Instead of eating because it tastes good, I would eat only to satisfy hunger.

If anyone can figure out how to break the addiction to tastes, I'd love to hear about it.

One advantage of my particular job situation and the company I work for is that I have a lot of time to take off each year. Part of it is that I've been there for 8 years, part of it is that they make you take the time off (i.e. you lose it or lose it).

Because I have so many days off, and I generally take so few off, what usually ends up happening is that I end up with a boatload of days off at the end of the year. Instead of doing what everyone else does, which is "take December off," I do something different--I work four day weeks for up to three months, depending on how many days off I have left at the end of the year.

This year, Jaden is in public school. And the thing about public school is that they have a lot of holidays and half-days. One thing I'm doing this year is taking those holidays and most of the half-days off. Helps with the home life somewhat.

This week, there isn't a holiday or half-day. However, my wife needs to get her hair done, and that takes a while. We don't have easy access to a babysitter. This Monday became a day off. No biggie. The weather will hopefully stay sunny and dry as forecast, although about normal temps for this time of year (45-50F, or about 7-10C). That means Gracie should be easy to entertain outdoors. Jaden will be in school as normal.

We are likely to do a vacation this summer as well (we didn't last year). Between that and all these days off already scheduled, it will be interesting to see how many days I'll have to take off at the end of the year,

What do you do to ensure you get a good night's sleep?
Submitted by Jacob's Ladder.

Make sure I'm good and tired before I go to bed. When I'm ready to go to bed, I fall asleep within five minutes.

Of course, the problem is that I'm rarely tired at an early time, so I often don't get quite enough sleep.

I am not a big shopper. In fact, I generally hate it. However, one of my favorite places to shop is Costco. It's a giant warehouse filled with bulk quantities of, well, just about everything. We buy toilet paper, paper towels, batteries, juice, food, soap (both laundry and bathroom), vitamins, and more! Our pictures? Uploaded to costco.com and picked up at the store. I would say that the vast majority of the food that I personally consume at home comes from Costco. Good thing it's cheap there, and very good for the money!

I go to Costco about every other week to stock up on food and various other things we need. Because Gracie is usually with me, she demands to be fed either a piece of pizza or a hot dog (I usually go around lunch time for that very reason). And these aren't small dogs or slices, they are HUGE. They taste good. And they're cheap. A hotdog and soda is $1.50. A slice of pizza is similarly priced (forget exactly).

Aside from all the high-quality items they sell in bulk for cheap, what I really like about Costco is their return policy. It's not something I have to use very often, but when I do, it's fairly hassle free. The hardest part of the process is usually waiting in line. You can bring anything back and they'll give you your money back, no questions asked.

Several years ago when I lived in Spokane, I bought some cordless phones at Costco. I had kept the package, but the receipt had been thrown out. It had also been over 30 days since I bought the phones (forget exactly how long). Not quite sure what to expect, I brought them in because, well, they sucked. I was given my money back without any hassle.

Because of this policy, I have no problem buying anything at Costco. Why? Because I know I can bring it back if I don't like it. I had costco.com ship me a monitor for work a few years back. Guess what? If I had a problem with it, which of course I didn't, then I could bring it back to the Costco store, no problems at all. When I get ready to buy an HD-TV or a generator, I'll probably be buying it at Costco for that no-hassle return policy.

The only exception to their return policy, which is fairly liberal, is that desktop and laptop computers won't be accepted after six months of date of purchase. Now that's just insane! There may be an exception for opened software and movies as well, but I'm having trouble remembering as I typically don't buy either of those things at Costco. However, you can bet the prices are competitive.

My favorite items at Costco right now are:

• The Kirkland Signature Green Tea. Kirkland Signature is Costco's own "Store" brand. It's higher quality than some national brands and less expensive to boot!
• Whole Chickens, which I freeze, unthaw in the fridge, and cook in a crock pot.
• Steak. Good quality stuff in bulk.
• Kirkland Signature Organic Plain Soy Milk.
• Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese.
• Stoneridge Orchards Dried Montmorency Cherries.
• Raw Almonds. They go really well with the cherries.

While it does cost $50 a year for Costco, it is well worth the cost just in terms of the savings and the ease of dealing with them the few times where there is a problem. I actually have the Executive Membership, which costs $100, but I also get 2% back on most of my pre-tax purchases. I figure that I have to spend $2500 a year (pre-tax) at Costco to get half of my $100 back. Since we easily spend more than that a year at Costco, our overall membership cost is actually lower than the standard Gold-Star membership. If we spend enough, it's actually free!

Audio: Show us cover art or share a track from the first band or solo artist you flipped for.
Submitted by Red Pen.

Pink Floyd. Dark Side Of The Moon. Need I say more?

I remember that my mom had this album when I was a young lad. It was one of the first "adult" albums I chose to play. Side 2 of DSoTM was my favorite.Pink Floyd has continued to rock my world throughout my life. Their music has been a staple throughout my life. I was lucky enough to see them play live (without Roger Waters) in 1994 at Oakland Coliseum. I was beyond ecstatic to see Roger Waters reunite with the other members of Pink Floyd to play at the Live8 concerts last year.The second Pink Floyd album that rocked my world was The Final Cut. I first heard it in high school in the dorms. I could safely say it was my favorite album back then, since it fed my depressed state of mind.

I was searching for graphics for this post and I happened across the official Pink Floyd website. They had a section on there dedicated to the re-release of The Final Cut. Here they had a short film, basically a "video" of several of their songs. I was disappointed that they used the Obscured version of Not Now John, but I assume that was for the web and that the "real" version, wherever it is, has the word "stuff" changed to the proper f-bomb.And, of course, there's a metric ton of Pink Floyd videos on YouTube if you are so inclined.

One of the reasons I started blogging over here, aside from the fact I eventually got an invite to Vox back in the beta days, was that I felt the readers of my main blog, where I write about VoIP, Telecom, and Technology, may not be want to constantly be exposed to things like,for instance, pictures of my kids or a random thought about stuff goingon at home. Or other things not related to VoIP, Telecom, andTechnology. By having another place to write, I can keep things separate. Everyone wins.

Partof the challenge of keeping more than one blog is keeping them active.Some days, I struggle quite a bit to post something on both blogs eachday. Most of the time, I can manage, though there is still 1 or 2 daysa month I can't quite manage it. And I try and generate unique content for each blog. I rarely crosspost things, though I felt it was necessary on this blog. That's forgivable as a reader of aregularly updated blog written by one person.

Once in a while,something major happens. Blogging, at least as it happens normally,stops. For example, power outages here at the end of 2006 made itdifficult for me to blog for a few days. I posted brief notes to bothof my blogs to let everyone know I was still alive. This past week, mybuddy Ken Camp, who writes on both his IP Adventures and Realtime Unified Communications blog had to deal with the fact his wife ruptured her intestine and spent a couple of days in the ICU. Obviously, dealing with that became front-and-center in his life.

WhileKen didn't post much to his blogs during the ordeal, aside from an oddsnapshot from the hospital to his Vox blog, he did manage to eek out afew updates on Twitter to give us an idea something was wrong. Theupdates were very brief and to the point. We knew something was up, andthus his absence from his blogs was completely understandable.

It was nice that Ken followed up and posted an epilogue to his experiences on both his "highly visible" blogs. While Ken may be struggling with the privacy implications, problogger.net's Darren Rowse suggests this helps build credibility as a blogger. Not that Ken needs more credibility in my book.

In any case, my thoughts are with Ken and his wife. Let's hope her recovery continues to go well.

Took three tries and another dad behind me to get this shot.

If you could make a magic wish for a futuristic gadget or high-tech innovation, what would your item do?
Submitted by Red Pen.

Transporter, without question. Would make traveling for work a heck of a lot easier.