Mostly Harmless

I caught a bug or stomach virus this week.  This morning when I got up to wake the kids, I got taken over by nausea.  Nice post I know but bear with me for a moment.

My son goes to the bathroom and says

“Daddy, you should throw up.  You’ll feel better if you do.”

Medical advise from a 6 year old. I didn’t hurl but I did call in sick; tummy pains are one thing but 90 minutes to the office could go really bad.

Disneyland, January 18 to 20

How we know each other

Rao and I worked together 10 years ago on an enormous Year 2000 computer project and have stayed in touch ever since. I attended his wedding in New Jersey many years ago and was unable to blend in to the crowd of hundreds because: (1) I’m white, (2) I’m over a foot taller than anyone else there. It was an amazing wedding and I still have fond memories of it. Our most recent get-together was during my divorce, where they took great care of me. Rao’s son, Mohan is Aaron’s age and he reminded me a lot of him. Indu is a warm and wonderful woman who took excellent care of me and shared some amazingly good recipes that look very easy to make when she does it. I have not had the same success.

Travel

Disneyland was someplace I had wanted to take Aaron when he was old enough to appreciate it, and now was an excellent time. He’ll be turning five in about two months. I had packed snack items to hold us through the travel. He favors hummus, rice crackers, grape tomatoes and cheese, but lately has also picked up a taste for the carrots that still have all the greens attached. He can pretend to be a rabbit that way. Read the rest of this entry »

I loves parodies. This Youtube video sums up HD-DVD v Blu-ray nicely. Update: This link still works.

Here’s a lucky guy.

A computer consultant driving a rental car drove onto train tracks Wednesday using the instructions his GPS unit gave him. A train was barreling toward him, but he escaped in time and no one was injured.

CNN.com: Doh! Man follows GPS onto train tracks — when train coming

Some consultants will just do whatever they are told to do.

Since July 30th I work with my identical twin brother. He’s been there for many years and many people know him in the work place.

Tuesday I was on the coffee line right behind the manager of another group I know. That’s when someone stopped to say hi to the manager. In a minute the guy looks at me an says hi too.

After a month I know what to expect. I pulled out my building ID, pointed to my first name and said “I’m not who you think I am. I’m Jan, his twin brother.”

Him: Huh? Oh that’s nice. Did you get the info I asked you about?

Me: I’m not him. I’m his twin brother. I started here only a month ago.

Him: Very funny! So you’ll send me an email?

Me: Who are you? (I continued to point to my ID)

Him: ???

Me: See the ID? Look at the first name?

The manager in front of me was laughing and finally the lights went on. It’s going to happen repeatedly but no big deal. At least it happened before I had my coffee.

Saw this on Reddit this morning. These guy are hysterical, although if a cop asks you “are you with these guys?” you’d better tell the truth.  Best Buy must have been fun to be in that day.

Bet “Retail Store Management 101″ never covered days like these.

5 year old boy to 3 year old girl at 5 am: “You HAVE to go downstairs and get my toy doggie.”

3 year old girl: “I’m scared! No one’s downstairs!”

5 year old boy: “HE-LL-O! I’ll be right with you!”

Lately he’s been picking up words and phrases from somewhere and it’s really funny. He sees an airplane and says “Look, it’s flying. How cool is that?”

I always know it. Be careful what you say around kids.

Today I took out the kids remote control airplane (graphic from Amazon) and gave it a whirl. Santa got it for them for Christmas.

It sucks wind loudly. It’s rated for 8+ year olds so the kids really can’t work it. I’m almost 5 times that old and I can’t work it either.

So I tell Lily “Honey, it’s a real P O S”.

Now my 5 year old son is saying “Daddy can I play with the POS?” and the girl is also saying “Daddy can you get me a POS? Please? I want a POS!”

. . .

“Maybe when you are older sweetheart, you can have a P O S of your own.”

We came back from Washington DC Sunday. It was an 8 hour painful, excruciating, non-stop lousy traffic, family trip up I-95. That’s not bad since Friday it took 10 hours to drive down there. Most of that was actually in New Jersey.

Around reaching NJ I turned on the radio. My 4½ year old boy suddenly says “that’s my favorite word! Open up the dirty window!” We asked him the usual “what? what did you say??” and he repeated himself.

The radio was playing Natasha Bedingfield’s song Unwritten. He pays more attention to the words than I do! We had to wait till the chorus repeated just to hear it.

Washington DC was fun and the GPS unit we got worked like a charm. The time driving was death and my son learned a new trick called “Car Sickness”.

So my little girl misbehaved today and was sent to her room. Her grandmother let her know that if she is quiet for two minutes she can come out.

Two minutes go by and Grandma lets her out. She walks right up to her grandmother, looks straight at her and says “Don’t do that to me again.”

She’ll be three in a few days. Where does she get the attitude and confidence…?

Grandma told her “Want to go back to your room?” Can’t wait to see what she is like at 16.