Sunday, June 14, 2009

Father's Day

Tara kindly offered to make me breakfast this morning (I took her up on it). This was a kind of role reversal, as she puttered in the kitchen while I watched cartoons (Duckman: Apocalypse Not, Season 3 DVD from Movie Madness).

Now I'm back to working the beat (on duty today) while she forges ahead with Six Feet Under.

I offered PSF a chunk of flextegrity for the OSCON Python booth as a model of "batteries included" (actually, more of a visualization than a model -- thinking MVC here).

Yesterday I backed up 5 DVDs worth of images (Portland Knowledge Lab stuff) plus uploaded Dawn's Journey, her trip to Glastonbury and related destinations.

I had a brief chat with a professor regarding the scene in Iran earlier today (she's also a gender and management consultant). She's understandably disappointed.

OK, it's time to ride Tinkerbell, unclog a few pipes. I'm wearing my Star Trek T-shirt (Alexia's actually -- original cast), which should help me blend in (lots of Trekkies in this town, if you ever need to go under cover for some reason -- maybe go for that pointy ears look, or copy Uhura's tattoo).

No wait, senior moment, this is my Beatles T-shirt, a present from the Lott family. Same advice: blend in to Portland's happening music scene, pretend you're an aging rock star, or maybe a blues guy of some kind. Leave the slide rule at home.

Back from my ride...

On cue (cuz I'm the dad), some kitchen sink parts failed, a long running battle, need a professional, but Uncle Sam has been kidnapped by scrooges who make him fight to pay ransom, so I make do with duct tape. These are serious problems though, if you live here. But then I've got it better than most Global U students, grossly under-served by an underpowered curriculum (not geeky enough, need more GST).

Rich kids in the West Hills get their anglophone live-in tutors from the Philippines, probably know Pythonic math already. Working class types, just making ends meet, learn rickety old Newtonian stuff and maybe next to nothing about polyhedra (no MITEs even).

I was talking with Lindsey at Angelo's awhile back, about ways to maybe fix that. She was looking at Free Geek and a return to personal tutoring, after some years in the corporate sector. I posted some more thoughts on that earlier today, before turning to those hospitals again. Giving up on PPS is not part of the plan though, as I was emailing to Patrick (on Jennifer 2, running Hardy Heron).

David, who does systems for Lewis & Clark, confirms a fried bus or mobo is to blame for Jackalope's downing (not a software issue). I've got the carcass in a bag.

Rose and Tara ended a fine Father's Day by cooking a take 'n bake pizza, while I wrote in Facebook about my role as freshman senator in a "fledgling dictatorship" i.e. Python Nation, and published a new web page on Arthur Seigel's Pygeo (a plan I'd mentioned to AR, one of our MVPs in said network).

Mom is enroute back from Pendle Hill, routing through Chicago.