Blogging Roller

Prompted by Dan Sickles' post on side projects and The Hacker Ethic (clearly a book which I need to add to my queue), Russell writes about balancing free-time tinkering and open source development with the other parts of life. I like this part:

<a href= "http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/index.jsp?date=20030105#125855">Russell Beattie: Like I've told my wife (and this is true) there's not a single technology that I've ever started messing around with in my spare time that I eventually didn't use for work or even to get a new job. Linux and Java for me were like that... I was doing M$ VB work until I decided one day to install a Linux box at home then started looking at Java as a way to program for it... the rest is history. All this mobile stuff that I'm obsessed about now is the same thing. Blogging too. Hopefully it'll come back around for me.

We had a very nice Christmas eve dinner in Chapel Hill with my parents, known as G'ma and P'pa by the kids, and my brother Dan.  We had dinner and dessert and opened presents.  This year the kids received lots of Lego sets and lots of Rescue Hero toys.  They were unbelievably excited!  It was interesting how they reacted to the toys.  Alex had a pretty good idea of what he would get, he knew what he wanted, and he was really happy to finally get what he had asked for.  Linus, on the other hand, did not remember what he had asked for, enjoyed the act of opening presents, and was very disappointed when the flow of presents stopped.  He seemed disappointed with his presents and said, this was a "horrible Christmas, all I got were Rescue Heroes."  He was just whining of course, because ten minutes later he was saying that Resue Heroes were the best presents in the world.  I think that Alex reacted the same way last year, so I guess it is just a "phase."

We tried something new this year.  We asked the boys to select and purchase with their own money presents for all of the family members who would be at Christmas.  Being only 4 and 6 years old, they do not have a lot of money and so, they did their shopping at the one-dollar store where each and every item costs only one dollar.  This was Andi's idea and it was a great idea.  

I took Alex to the dollar store.  Everything was going fine until it was time to buy Linus' present.  Alex did not want to buy Linus something nice.  I guess he was trying to preempt jealousy.  I would say "Alex, how about this cool motorcycle" and he would answer "no Dad, he would like these little gray balls."  Even the lady who was stocking the shelves noticed that he did not want to get his brother anything nice. Finally, I had to pick something for Linus.  Money was the next problem.  I asked Alex for his money, his lifetime savings of eighteen dollars.  He was so shocked and disappointed that he would have to use his own money to pay for the presents that he wanted to drop the shopping basket and return home.  I convinced him not to do that by telling him that he could also use his money to buy something for himself.  He picked up a bag of 300 tiny toy soldiers and went to the register to pay.

Andi took Linus to the dollar store and he was more than happy to buy Alex a present, in fact he wanted to buy Alex lots of presents.  Alex and Linus are so different!  Alex is independent, a bit of a loner, and a little selfish.  Linus is more dependent, outgoing, very sharing, and generous.  I don't think this is just a phase.

At Chrismas, the boys were very excited to see everybody open up the presents that they had chosen.  They did a great job of chosing presents to suit the different people in their live.  The one dollar presents turned out to be the most meaningful presents of the day.

ahhh goo!

I say: I'll be back this weekend.

We have all recovered from the tummy bug and have resumed holiday fun. Now we are off to my parents house for a Christmas eve dinner. Alex (6) and Linus (4) are so excited that their feet rarely touch the ground and when they do, only tippy toes come in contact with carpet. We are off. I hope to post a picture of our little Santa later tonight or tomorrow. Until then, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Until yesterday, I was enjoying my time off, finishing up Christmas shopping, and spending time with friends back in town for the holidays. I had no time for blogging. Now the whole family and I are suffering from a <a href= "http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=godawful">godawful and <a title="you can't even sail close to NC without getting sick" href= "http://www.pilotonline.com/military/ml1220sic.html">highly contagious stomach bug. Little Leo spent his 6th month birthday going in and out of fever with hives. Thankfully, he has been able to keep his mommy milk down, he has avoided dehidration, and he remains <a href= "http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-hap1.htm">happy as a clam.

I have not been so lucky. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, with an emphasis on tossing. What a drag. Now you know why I have not been posting and why I had to miss the <a href= "http://radio.weblogs.com/0104308/2002/12/23.html#a2858">RTP bloggers lunch today.

Today, that same five year old found the Wordpad shortcut that I left on the kids computer, right between Sim City and Lego Racers. He started it up and struggled to type in his first attempt at email: a christmas list for his grandmother. He wants the "Spider Man Sky Raider Playset" and the "Masters of the Universe Bashin Beetie." I'm so proud!

I'm working at home this week on various geekly projects and I'm spending lots of time with Leo. He was already a happy little guy, but now that he can sit up he is overjoyed. You can see he is so proud of himself. I think that this time, from about 4 months to a 9 months old, is the sweetest time in baby development. Babies at this age can't move around and get into trouble. They can smile, laugh, coo, goo, and babble in a pleasant way, but they can't talk back at you. They never say "Dad, you are so lame" even when they should.

Relations between young Alex and Linus today were strained to the breaking point when parental authorities determined that Jack Stone Legos from the smaller Linus collection had become mixed in with the larger Alex collection. To further complicate matters, authorities charged Alex with kidnapping several Lego people from the Linus collection and hiding them around his personal residence.

Parental authorities were unable to determine the ownership of the individual Legos in the combined collection and quickly advised both parties of this dire situation. During the tense negotiations that followed, Linus suggested that the Lego collection be evenly split between the two parties. Alex then protested loudly and suggested that the combined Lego collection be put into storage until such time that both parties could learn to share and play together in peace. Linus countered by suggesting that peace is possible now and that perhaps the Legos should immediately become community property to be shared equally by all members of the household except those to which Legos pose a choking hazard. After further negotiations, a time-sharing arrangement was put into effect and Linus was randomly selected to take ownership of the Lego collection for week one.

As usual, the best photo was one taken by my Dad, with his superior camera and his superior composition skills. He has captured the essence of our four month old boy Leo. <img class="photo" src="http://www.rollerweblogger.org/resources/roller/essence-of-leo.jpg" hspace="5" vspace="5" align="left" alt="baby boy Leo at 4 months old" /> I don't mean to brag, but at this point in time I'm sure that Leo is the best baby in the world. He has been sleeping though the night for almost a month now, sometimes going out for 8 hours at a time. He is happy and laughing almost all of the time. And best of all, he is as healthy and fat as can be (100th percentile for weight!).

The <a href= "http://www.rollerweblogger.org/page/roller/20020829#no_bottle_tonight"> No Bottle Tonight night was really an exception. Baby Leo is normally very easy to handle and almost always smiling and happy. I'm not sure why he is so much easier to deal with than his two older brothers were. Leo is in the 100th percentile in terms of size, so perhaps Leo is simply enjoying the one short part of life where everybody agrees that fat = happy.

Something my grand-dad used to say was:

   Once upon a time a goose drank wine and a 
   monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line.

Thanks to the net, I now know that it was a jump-rope rhyme from around 1900. Big Daddy was born in 1911.

I returned to work today after two wonderful weeks of paternity leave. I still have one week of leave remaining, but I have a bug list a mile long, a deadline looming, and a product that is screaming for release after 18 months of development. I need to get back to work. Things might get a little slow around here for a couple of days.

So far, the most worthwhile application that I have found for my Roller weblogging software has been the DaveAndi weblog. DaveAndi is a password protected weblog for family and friends who are intested in knowing what is going on with new baby Leo. I'm not going to share the password with you because 1) you'd be bored to tears and 2) it ain't none of your business.

I'm very happy to announce the birth of Leo Michael Johnson - our third son. Leo was born at 1:45pm on Friday June 21, 2002, weighed 9 pounds 11 ounces, and measured 22 inches long. Leo will join the Roller project as the VP of Human Resources and has already started a major new personnel initiative. He wants to push back project schedules across the board so that all Roller team members can enjoy more family time. He has my full support!