Notes From Tom’s Garage

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  tom 2:37 pm on March 11, 2012 Permalink  

  Cactus Diaries 

  I have a few stories involving cactus but I’ve never memorialized them here. That behavior ends today because I know my memory is failing and I’ll need something funny to read in my sunset years. Let’s face it, “cactus stories” are always funny as long as you aren’t the unlucky starring character.

  My oldest brother brought his kids down last night so the cousins could play and our plan was to go hiking in the hills around my place today. I’ve taken Ben and Abby on separate excursions in the recent past and they were eager to show their cousins all about “the wilderness”. Normally I’ll pack the gear but I didn’t this time and that came back to bite me later. Ironically we had more stuff you’re “supposed” to bring than what I usually take (first aid kit, for example) but the one piece I didn’t have was my Leatherman and in this case it would have useful. Thankfully I had my trusty Cold Steel pocket knife and that worked okay. If you’re a male and don’t carry a pocket knife or something similar you’re a pussy. ‘Nuf said.

  Shortening the story a bit… We passed the first ridge and the boys took off, bounding over and through the brush. I warned them all to look out for cactus but they absorbed that about as much as I would have when I was a single-digit-aged boy. They got 75 yards or so in front of the rest of us when Ben and Luc started yelling that Kevin (the Kevinator!) got some cactus in his leg. Joe and I figured he had *a* needle in his leg so we moved from walking to a slightly faster pace but no real sense of urgency. When we got closer we got to see the real deal. Kev must have been running when he hit the cactus because there were 15+ needles stuck in his leg supporting the large actual piece of cactus hanging off his leg. Those are painful no matter how old you are but at 7 years old it’s like medieval torture.

  Joe did all the right “dad things” trying to calm his boy and making a first attempt to pull that sucker off him (getting stuck in the process) but ultimately it worked in our favor to have us both there because Joe could console while I played with the needles. Eventually I took out my trusty knife and cut the needles at the cactus so he didn’t have the weight pulling on his skin and we could move him a more efficiently.

  Thank God for cell phones! We were a ways out from my house but only a couple hundred yards from a road. I called Kerri to grab us from the street and we headed down a reasonable path to meet her. We were pretty lucky that it happened where it happened because if we were much deeper (as was our plan) Joe or I would have been pulling the needles out there in the hills.

  By the time we got home Kevin was in much better shape. We did some bargaining for how often and how many needles we would pull. Kerri pulled the first group and after a while I worked out with him that I’d yank 2 every 3 or 5 minutes.  I wish I had a microscope to see what the ends looked like because they were so hard to get out. To the naked eye they didn’t look barbed but they must have been. And some of them were really deep. All told there were 15 left by the time we got home. Some of them were 2mm+ sunk into his shin area. This is when I still worked in healthcare and had access to lidocaine. 🙂

  Kevin was a tough kid given what had to be done. It still shocks me how resilient they are; Within 5 minutes of having the last needle out he was romping with his cousins.

  I have to admit, when I first saw the big piece of cactus hanging off his leg my first inclination was to pull out my phone and take a picture. But what are you going to do when a 7 year old is crying from pain? At my age I know that 20 extra seconds wouldn’t change anything. But as a parent, looking at a young child in pain, you really feel the need to let them know that you’re doing whatever it takes to make the pain stop. No pictures for you, sorry.

  Kevin gets a “Tough Man” award when he comes over next… this assumes he willfully heads this direction any time in the future.

   
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  tom 10:54 pm on February 6, 2012 Permalink  

  Non-Internet-Pros Know It Should Be Ubiquitous 

  The Internet has been my financial life-blood for the last 17 years so of course I think it should spread like wildfire. What I realized on Superbowl Sunday was, it’s (The Internet) the life-blood of everyone else too.

  Towards the end of our Superbowl party a couple of moms (Kerri included) were laughing about how they used to beg their parents to drive them to the Thousand Oaks library to look up the history of this or that for a paper they were working on. And as I jumped in, I explained how I used to ride my bike to the Agoura library for the same sort of thing. At the moment it was somewhat of a pissing match on who had to work harder to get to the house of books and how hard family life was back then (walking barefoot through the snow, to and from school, uphill both ways, blah). But then we chuckled at how my daughter uses her iPad to look things up, right alongside her textbooks and homework papers. It was pretty funny.

  But then we turned a bit more serious and, despite our relative differences, agreed on how much “always-on” internet access gave our kids an edge. A huge edge! We talked briefly about SOPA and PIPA and ACTA (ick!). Without the real details we all, from differing points of view on many things, saw clearly that an open internet levels the playing field more easily than so many more difficult gigs.

  If your family is poor and can’t afford a computer with high-speed internet access or you live in a rural area where high-speed internet is not reasonably available, you’re at a significant disadvantage. Our country is supposed to be better than that. But we’re not…

  Right now I cannot get DSL or Fiber to my home (without insane pricing) so I’m stuck with my cable provider; They (the cable provider) know this and do not feel the need to compete. That’s sucky for me because it would make my life “easier”, but it’s a tragedy for kids .

  I’ve read many times about how expensive it is to be poor. You pay a bill late or bounce a check and you pay hefty fees. You don’t have time to make dinner at home so you buy fast food which is vastly more expensive than making a meal from more raw ingredients. Add “taking the kid to the library” to the list. It’s brutal.

  I’ve been a GOP-ish conservative all my life and I still believe in what it once meant but the power that the telcos and media (okay, “Big Oil ” too, happy?) wield at the expense of our younger generation (our future!) cannot be overlooked any longer. Trading President Obama for Mitt Romney does nothing for the helpless who are most likely our greatest untapped resource.

  Access to the internet needs to be ubiquitous. Money should not be a factor. It’s more important than Solyndra and its bullshit promise of alternative energy.  It’s more important than paying the Auto Worker’s Union’s underfunded and insane pension plans. It’s more important than funding a war that we never had the will to win (and I admit, I was for the Iraq war initially). Ubiquitous access to the internet is certainly more important than trying to sustain an out-dated business model that seeks to trump our future to ensure that everyone buys one of their buggy whips (that’s you, “Big Media”).

   
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  tom 11:18 am on September 27, 2011 Permalink
  Tags: tom, triathlon   

  Carpinteria Triathlon 

  I did the small (Sprint) triathlon at Carpinteria on Sunday. That in itself isn’t a big deal but with me having smoked for the last 25 years and sitting at a desk for the last 17 years, I’m pretty happy that I finished.

  People say they (triathlons or similar competitions) can be addictive and I always thought they meant that the feeling you get from exercising was addicting. That may be true for some but I hated training (in the pure physical sense). What I can say is, I’m gonna do another and not because I loved the healthier living… I’m doing another because my times were abysmal and I know I can smoke my last showing. Even though there is a competition I think it’s a lot like golf where you’re competing against yourself. I had a 7 minute (!!!) transition from swim to bike. I can do better. My 15K (9 miles) bike took me 50 minutes (granted, it was raining and I was scared shitless on the downhill). 50 minutes is ridiculous.

  I talked with my oldest brother on Monday and he asked if I was sore. I told him I felt pretty good. That means I didn’t come close to leaving it all out there.

  I’d never done one before but I’ll do at least one more, now that I know what to expect, to prove to myself that I can do better than 1:53 in a crappy little sprint.

  Notable: This whole thing came about because me and some neighbors were hanging out in The Garage on Aug 27th and after one too many beers I made a bet with Matt’s wife (Barb) that I could beat her. Beer should be illegal. She beat me by 13 mins. Great job Barb! I’m picking up her dog’s poop for the next week to settle the bet and am happy to do it given what she accidentally gave me. Matt got his pal (who took first in his age group in Olympic) to loan me a wetsuit. Pat loaned me his spare bike.  Kerri gave everything a partner could give in the way of support (watching kids so I could swim, forcibly feeding me proper food and letting me stay in the house, among many other things). I used Kerri’s old mountain bike instead of Pat’s badass road bike because I haven’t done much riding in recent years and the rain made me a little nervous. Since I was using the mountain bike and going to be looking ridiculous anyways, we decided to clip on a hollowed out coconut to the handlebars as my water bottle holder. That was on lone from neighbor Darin.

  Lastly, I had a ton of support. Many of my neighbors and family members came out for the race. I feel bad that I didn’t tell more people in advance but honestly I wasn’t sure I was going to go through with it until I got 50 meters in on the swim and I didn’t want to have to explain to more people why I backed out. Telling my pals Ross and Scott about the race really helped. After seeing Ross muck through a 508 mile (The 508) bike race, I couldn’t find an excuse to back out of this little gig. And Scott, well, I’d never have heard the end of it. He’d have put an atomic-powered audio device in my casket that would play him laughing at me and calling me a pussy for a thousand years if I backed out. You probably think I’m kidding… I am most certainly not. He’s a genuine turd and my only hope is for him to die first.

  This just in: Neighbor Matt just sent me a picture that was snapped on the run. I probably walked for half a mile and one stretch was while crossing a little bridge. Right there was a photographer. I saw him just as he was ready to shoot but it was too late. I look like a deer in headlights and now there’s proof that I didn’t run the whole time. Dammit! I wasn’t gonna say anything about the walking bit.

  Some pics of me, Barb, Sam and Matt here: https://plus.google.com/photos/110030917966258284726/albums/5656497772116413953

   
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  tom 9:07 pm on August 2, 2011 Permalink  

  Phone Games 

  Thinking of designing a fun game for those poor bastards who are forced to ignore the Do Not Call List and ring my home informing me that they’ll be “in my neighborhood giving home improvement estimates”. 8 – 10 times per week… no kidding.

  I’m imagining a cool phone tree (phone maze, really) that anyone who is not on my whitelist goes through when attempting to cause my phone to ring. A couple of simple options can get you to my voicemail if you’re paying attention but if you want to cause my phone to actually ring, you’d need to go through an intensive identification system that verifies a human is pulling the triggers and that he actually has valid business with me. Oh yes, there’ll be plenty of recursion with some options being infinite.

  It must seem odd that I’d devise such a thing given my distaste for phone mazes from the likes of Verizon, Time Warner, the DMV, etc., but those are silly vendors thinking they’re doing their customers a favor by having them as customers. I’d simply be disenfranchising those who want to extract money or time or both from me for their own gain (pssst, if you’re calling to give me money, lmk and I’ll whitelist you).

  I’m not actually going to do it of course. But there could be a business model in there. Perhaps rather than we being sold on a mailing/calling list we sell an access code to a distributor and get paid for each inbound call. Nuke the access code when you’re not seeing enough of a return or whatever. That’s a free (probably already done) business idea… lmk when it’s done.

   
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  tom 12:02 am on April 9, 2011 Permalink  

  They Were All Hitters That Night 

  A little late on this but wanted to jot it down before I forgot. We had a game last night and every kid on the roster hit, many of them every time they were up. My absolute favorite was one who I’ve been striking out all season. Usually the kids who aren’t the strongest hitters will dribble their first hit up towards the pitcher but this one was going to make his first a memorable one and he ripped one right up the middle, nearly taking my leg off. It certainly made my night but it may also be one of the highlights I recall in years yet to pass. His dad was understandably thrilled and from what I’ve been told, he has cancelled the hit (the other kind of “hit”) on me. Phew!

  It was a rare win for us but that doesn’t matter too much. Anyone with a 7 year old boy can tell you, the kids only endure practices and hanging around in the outfield for two reasons: 1) To get a hit when it’s (finally!) their turn at bat and 2) To hit a walk-off grand slam in the championship.

  Side note: Since this has never happened before and is not likely to happen again in the future I have to pull a proud Dad moment and recognize that Ben went 4 for 4 (all base hits).  The stars were aligned for us and I’ll never forget it.  Of course, he’ll not know what to do when the next strike-out occurs but I’m not going to worry about that now because we have a streak going — way to go kid!

   
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  tom 1:30 pm on March 20, 2011 Permalink  

  Dear Teachers: We don’t Hate You, We Love You! 

  As an involved parent of two young kids in the public school system I talk to many other parents. The universal sentiment is that teachers are overworked and underpaid. But it is also nearly universal that they feel unions are making things impossible for our beloved teachers. Right or wrong, that is the sentiment.

  We spend half our state budget on education and I think we can all agree that the results are lackluster at best. Parents want to try new things to see how we can improve but are blocked or severely hindered at every turn. Try getting a Charter School started when there are no union teachers. It’s doable but unnecessarily difficult.

  Although nearly every teacher I’ve encountered over the last 6 years of involvement has been of the hard working, dedicated ilk there have been plenty of useless wastes of space. Most of them have been around for a long time and will be the last to go if a budget shortfall occurs while great teachers will be out looking for a different profession. We parents don’t like that.

  A very small number of teachers have no business being around kids and districts have tried to fire them but end up spending millions in the effort while paying the teacher’s salary for years on end. When we hear about budget shortfalls we wonder why this waste occurs.

  When we watch the recent happenings in Wisconsin and how some teachers lie about being sick to be able to march in demonstrations, collecting sick pay (is that stealing?), we desperately pray that our kids aren’t being taught that the end justifies the means. And what “end” is being justified? The continuance of failing methods? Most teachers did not participate but in our view those that did should have been fired. The unions celebrate those who lied, shirked their responsibilities and claimed to represent the good teachers who really do have the children’s best interest at heart.

  Dear teachers, we love you and we appreciate you. We know you’re stuck with a massive task and few tools with which to accomplish that task. We want to help!

  This isn’t about you. The unions structure things so that *you* are the collateral damage and something about that needs to change.

  I’m a simple man with simple thoughts and an education not beyond high school. It pains me to see smarter people with critical thinking skills misinterpret our motivations and miss the obvious source of problems: The unions.

  As an aside: Despite what you might derive from the note above, I’m quite pro-union for the employee’s sake. I am rather opposed to unions losing their way and favoring paths that are meant to strengthen their own power for its own sake. I feel like that’s where we’ve landed WRT education.

   
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  tom 12:14 pm on March 12, 2011 Permalink  

  Game 3 Recap 

  We lost today (5-3 against the Oriels) which puts us at 1 and 2. We actually played pretty well but we suffered from extreme slowness out of the batter’s box once they hit the ball. At least four outs by half a step which could have easily been beat if we didn’t wait for a second or two after the hit to see where the ball went. We’ll be working on that quite a bit at next practice.

  The kids made some crazy good plays, both in the infield and outfield; There were a lot of proud parents in the stands today. Unbelievable grab by Skyler at pitcher and one so close deep into left field (in and out of the glove on a ripped super high flyer).

  A couple of runs got in when one of the kids eventually got a ball in center field and didn’t know where to throw it so he held on to it. And he kept holding on to it. The play is still live when that happens so the kids just kept rounding bases and scoring. It was one of those moments where it got so silly we just had to laugh. He may have held on to it for more than a minute. But he also got a hit for the first time this season which is great because I was starting to think I’d strike him out in every game this year. Ben put one in play but got thrown out. Then I struck him out with 5 consecutive completely unhittable pitches. Sorry kid. 🙁

  I toyed with slowing the pitches down for the kids who are struggling a bit while pitching fast to the consistent hitters. The slow pitches are just a lot more difficult to get in the credit card sized strike zones.  All but one of the kids put the ball in play so there was some level of success.

  Our next three games are against some really talented teams so we definitely have some work to do to avoid mercy rules. We may have a chance but we really need to concentrate on making sure the kids don’t get hurt (those other teams are that big of hitters).

  So far I’m really impressed with how much the kids have progressed already. I can’t wait to see what they’ll be doing towards the end of the season!

  UPDATE: I forgot to mention that we got to the fields early so I’d be able to warm up a bit and get a feel for speed, etc. The other parents got busy warming up the kids so Kerri jumped in and caught for me — No gear! So cool. I foresee many complete family baseball events in the coming years. Thanks mama!

   
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  tom 1:11 am on March 12, 2011 Permalink
  Tags: baseball   

  Game Two And Following Practice 

  It must have been opening day jitters that affected my pitching in the first game because I was really happy with game two results. Or was it?

  The good news is, I only hit one kid in game two. The bad news is, this is the second time I hit that same kid. More good news is, he is one of my four gorillas and he proceeded to rip the next pitch (Way to hang in there Nathan!). The bad news is, I struck out my own boy twice.  All that said, I was really comfortable and put out a lot of hittable balls. Woohoo!

  Along comes practice today and I’m all over the place. I mean, what the heck? I don’t want to make light of the earthquake in Japan last night but I do wonder if the earth’s magnetic field got boogered up or something. We have an 8:30am game tomorrow (this morning?) so I’ll be getting to the fields at 7:30 to setup and warm up. I’m not going to step on one crack-in-the-concrete, cross the path of a black cat (or vice versa) , walk under any ladders, or think any bad thoughts about that creepy kid in that one Twilight Zone episode.

  I know everyone will be on the edge of their seat waiting to hear how things go so I’ll try to post results. If we win I’ll take all of the credit and if we lose I’ll blame it on the kid whose self esteem I think I can damage with the least amount of effort.

  Bonus note: I’ll be able to see Abby’s game tomorrow too!

   
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  tom 6:17 pm on March 5, 2011 Permalink
  Tags: ben ( 5 )   

  Opening Day And Ben’s First Game Of The Season 

  What a day — Gorgeous (if a little too warm) day for playing baseball. I think this is the first time the entire team showed up for pictures on time, even the one with a broken arm. We’ve got great parents this year so there was no hassle in keeping the kids together and on task for the 30 minutes it took to get through the process.  We had another hour after pictures to wait for the official Opening Ceremony. Me and Ben had pancakes and sausage and sat with a few other families from the team. Afterwards we wandered around the fields and talked with other players and parents that we’d met in previous seasons. I have to admit, I sneaked out to the street for a quick cigarette since I knew it’d be 4-5 hours before I’d get another. As ugly as that sounds, no one wants me pitching to the kids with an excessively low nicotine level in my bloodstream (it’s impossible to pitch when locked in a straight-jacket, I’ve tried it).

  The Opening Ceremony was nearly an hour which is quite long when you’re in charge of a dozen 7 year olds and especially difficult when the sun is beating down on them.  Whatever, we made it through without any of the kids getting thrown out for misbehaving.

  The game itself was quite a little roller coaster ride for me and the kids. After a brief warm-up and my less-than-inspiring pre-game “pep talk” we settled in to bat first. I didn’t spend any time in advance warming myself up which I’m sure got the better of me (mentally) when I took the mound. My first three pitches were completely unhittable. My fourth almost took the kid’s head off and my final was way inside but he got a piece of it and got himself on base. Side note: The kids only get 5 pitches and if they don’t hit, they’re out. They also only get 3 strikes so if they’re swinging at my garbage they end up leaving the batter’s box even sooner.  The first hitter is a stud and will likely get on base every time at bat this year, regardless of the trash I end up throwing him.

  I proceeded to hit the next two kids (one of them right in the “junk”) but one of them still got a hit. Then I struck out the next batter. Pathetic!

  Once we got the kids out in the field I grabbed one of the helpful parents and had him catch a bunch of pitches for me.  I was wild (again!) at first but eventually got into a groove and the rest of the game improved steadily. I still threw occasional garbage that some of the kids would chase but we saw a lot more hitters in the next 5 innings.

  I struck out Ben the first time up but he did make two solid connections that he pulled foul. His next at bat was one of those proud Dad moments where he let the first pitch go by and got hold of the next one, ripping it into right field. We proceeded to put the next 5 kids on base and Ben eventually scored. It was a great inning for us.  We eventually lost by 2 as the other team had a killer 5-run inning.

  We need a ton of work on our infield skills but the kids are doing a decent job considering none of them played at this level last year. I think more than half of the other team had kids who played up last year so this ain’t their first rodeo.

  More on great parents: It must be hard for them when the coach pitches and effectively strikes out their kids. I got lots of support and words of encouragement, especially from the parents of the kids I hit in that first inning. I know it’s hard on the kids when they strike out and that weighs on me a bit but most of them eventually hit during the game and that makes the entire affair worthwhile for them (or, that’s what I tell myself).

  I’ll be practicing more this week and I’m guessing my first-game jitters are done with me for the season. If not, I’ll have the kids up in catcher’s gear when they’re batting.

   
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  tom 11:22 pm on February 16, 2011 Permalink  

  Fun With QR Codes 

  I’ve been thinking about QR Codes for a couple of years, ever since my neighbor introduced them to me when he was working on a labeling project. I never spent a ton of time on them because they didn’t seem to be heavily used at the end user level, quite likely due to lack of proper hardware.  Then on one of my daily travels through the domainer space I noticed Domain Shane’s feed had a headline mentioning them.  I read his story and one of the interesting ways he may use them in his business and figured I’d start slapping around ideas about how I could use them too. I’ll need more time on that.

  While bouncing around the ideas I wondered if Shane had more to his story than I had initially picked up on so I went back and sure enough, there was more to it.  Well, now I’m happily pointing my iPhone at every little QR Code I come across and eventually I’m sure I’ll come up with some clever use for that neat little tech.

  Thanks for the shirt mister!