08 December, 2004

If you've got to be sick, be Dayquil sick

I've got a sore throat that feels like someone rammed a steel pipe down it. And no, I'm not into that. My tonsils look like those pictures of beached whales that have been picked at by the gulls for about three weeks.

Dayquil -- or at least the Walgreen's equivalent -- Daytime, has been my savior. Taking it, the symptoms go away. So do I. I float above my body, seeing myself go through the motions, yet simultaneously detached from all emotional impact. [Also known as "The Jason State"]. I assume it's like what must happen when one gets a large HD TV and cannot turn it off. Staring at my life in full HD color, without properly adjusted sound. Must have an under-powered speaker arrangement. Gotta have more quil.

04 December, 2004

Proper Coffee Making

  • Grind, don't buy ground.
  • Make sure the filters are tall enough. Short, mutant filters over-flow (as well I know).
  • 1 Tbls of beans per cup o'joe desired = the happiest brew.
  • Make the coffee, then clean up the grinder and put away the beans, and wipe up the spilled water. Don't clean up ahead of time, or you'll have no reward mud to consume!
  • Whoever said it is necessary to freeze the beans was wrong. Seal them up, in a cannister or whatever, but don't freeze them. Anyone who needs to store their beans like Walt's head (yeah, I know that's a myth, but I like the imagry) doesn't drink enough java. It shouldn't be around long enough to see established space colonies.
  • Drink it, then drink some more.

Upgraded the home wireless LAN

I upgraded the home LAN. My wife was having problems maintaining her wireless connection, so I thought I'd be cool and bring the router up, from under the basement stairs, and put it atop the entertainment center (putting a new switch in it's place, at the nexus of the home wiring). Turned out it wasn't so cool, and she had the same problems. Every four minutes or so it would lose its connection, and she would have to right-click and 'repair' to get back on.

So, I downloaded the latest flash firmware for the router. I downloaded the latest driver for the wireless NIC. I downloaded the updated encryption protocol for the NIC. I installed it all.

Oddly enough, it all works. Super G, blah blah blah. I'm out of the dog house.

03 December, 2004

Knowledgebase Item - Baby is driving you nuts with incessant crying

Problem:
Baby is driving you nuts with incessant crying

Notes:

Never shake a baby.

Solution:

Contrary to popular idiotic belief, babies do not cry to make you mad. They do it only for the following reasons:

Frustration

  • Hunger (Feed them)
  • Tired (Put them to bed)
  • Dirty Diaper (Change them)
  • Pain, such as teeting, ear infection, etc. (Help them! Call the doctor)
  • Needs comforting from its care-giver (Comfort them)
  • Other physical irritation, such as Nuk under the back, wrinkled sheet, they're too cold, they're too warm, missing comfort item (Fix it)


Fear

  • Fighting with your significant other (Stop it and remember who comes first; hint: it ain't you or your spouse)
  • Thinks care-giver will not fulfill their responsibilities (Comfort them) .
  • Care-giver is yelling at them (Who's the adult here, anyway? Buck up and remain calm.)

02 December, 2004

Kids' Bed-Time

Put your kids to bed at a reasonable time. They need more sleep than you do, and they need to perform, in school or pre-school, better than you probably do at work. Letting them stay up late, while it might help you the next day, hinders them; they need a consistent schedule.

My guess is, you might want to keep them up at night, so they sleep late the next day. Wrong answer. It is your responsibility to give them a consistent, health-giving environment. So, you've got to buck up. You then have a choice: a) you get less "along time" after they go to bed, or b) you have to drink more coffee when they drag your lazy selfish asses out of bed earlier than you want to get up on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Deal with it. Buy a coffee pot with a timer.

The patterns you set for these kids will be with them for a long time.

01 December, 2004

Ability to create PDF files - For Free

Have you ever needed to produce PDF files, of your documents, but you didn't want to shell out the $200+ bucks for Adobe Acrobat? I have, and I found just the beastie for it. At http://www.pdf995.com/, you can download free applications that let you:

- "print" to PDF files (looks like a printer to Windows, but it produces a PDF file)
- combine PDF files together
- convert various files from one type to another
- secure PDF's through encryption

The catch? You have to look at an advertisement if you do not pay the $9.99 for the license. Big whoop.

I am going to send these folks their $10, but until I do, I still have PDF creation ability.

Disclaimer: I am not in any way associated with the pdf995 people; I just found it to be a useful tool and thought I would share.