Ultranormal

Author: Kevin Lawver

  • Bigger Craziness! No Kidding!

    I went with Jen to her doctor’s appointment this morning, and am proud to announcement that she’s healthy, happy, has great blood pressure, and is 10 weeks pregnant!!! It’s been extremely difficult to keep this a secret for so long (we’ve known for a little over a month). This morning’s appointment really brought the point home that she’s already gone through a quarter of her pregnancy, and there are just 30 weeks left until her due date (6/6/2004 for those playing along at home).

    Next month, we get to hear the heartbeat. We’re taking Max with us, and I can’t wait. I think that’ll really seal it for him. He’s been a little unclear on the whole “baby growing in mommy’s belly” thing, and just kind of ignores us when we talk about it. He nods and plays along, but I don’t think it’s sunk in that he’s going to have a little brother or sister (Jen doesn’t want to find out the gender… I’m still trying to convince her). Actually, until this morning I don’t think it had really sunk in for me either. Even though we’ve been talking endlessly about baby names (and just like last time, we’re having a heck of a time trying to come up with a girl’s name), it was all academic. Today, seeing the OB again, it’s suddenly very real. It’s like Christmas Eve (for 30 more weeks!! AUGH!).

    Oh, and I got to talk to my little gestating child today and he (or she) really wants you to go to nonDependant. You don’t want to disappoint a fetus, do you?

  • Overlooked Music From The Collection

    While working this week, I’ve been trying to go back and listen to some of the 20 gigs of music on the uberMac I haven’t touched in a while. Here’s a quick recap of great bands and albums rediscovered:

    • INXS: Listen Like Thieves – This album flat out rocks, Eighties style. Solid horn work, good beat, and punchy vocals. I really wish Michael Hutchence hadn’t killed himself. He had a perfect rock n’ roll voice. It’s hard to believe, but this album is even better than Kick, one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money.

    • Thievery Corporation: DJ Kicks – This is laid-back lounging perfection. It makes me think of sweaty people dancing the tango slowly. A great album to throw on if you have a headache.

    • Morphine: Yes – The band’s weirdest and rockinest album, this one takes some getting used to. The first song will get you on your feet, jumping around the room until you accidentally trip over a lamp and strangle yourself with the headphone cord. The end of the album stumbles into weirdness, like Marty Feldman after a three day bender… but the first two thirds more than makes up for it, right up until the weirdness (which starts with The Jury). The album ends up redeeming itself with the super-depressing Gone for Good, which was used in the movie Two Days in the Valley (it was actually good if you haven’t seen it – Jeff Daniels plays a depressed cop, and James Spader is creepy).

    • Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner – I don’t think any songs from this album ever made it to the radio, but it’s great. All the normal things to love about Ben Folds are there: great piano work, alternating pithey and touching lyrics, all wrapped up with a beautiful little bow. Overlooked, but worth listening to.

    Oh, and one more time, please go check out nonDependant. I’ll cry if you don’t.

  • It’s Alive!! It’s ALIVE!!

    As of 8:54 EST this morning, nonDependant is live to the world. I’m not sure what will happen, how fast or who will join up, if anyone. I don’t know that I’m really all concerned about it. Of course, I hope it’s successful, but it feels good to have just made the decision to do something and to have put the effort into doing it.

    I hope you’ll check it out, and if you want, join us. If you don’t, that’s fine too. It’s an experiment. I don’t know what it will become, and right now, I honestly can’t tell you even what it is past the fact that it’s running Drupal, has a lamb in the bottom right corner of the page that I spent an evening outlining in Photoshop, and has several hundred lines of prose that Dawson and I slaved over. What happens now really isn’t up to either of us…

  • Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow

    The last section’s been written, and I’m going to do some QA tonight before I turn it on tomorrow morning. I’m excited, nervous, terrified, etc. I’m terrified of both success and failure, but am unwilling not to try. It’s a weird feeling, like the night before a first date. I’ll post a big huge announcement here tomorrow morning when I flip the switch. I hope you’ll all check it out, see if it’s something you want to be involved in, and join us. Either way it turns out, success or failure, it should be educational (hopefully entertaining, but mostly educational).

    In related news, I voted this morning. It’s funny how heavy that pen feels while drawing in those little circles. There were no national candidates on the ballot, but it was still interesting. There were folks handing out “sample ballots” with their candidate’s box colored in. I hate that they’re allowed in the parking lot of the polling place. I understand free speech and all, but it’s like running a gauntlet just trying to get in the building to cast my vote. I’m sure it’ll be a circus next November…

    Oh, and watch the debate tonight on CNN at 7pm EST – should be a doozy. The last couple Democratic debates have been entertaining. I’m not sure how much I actually learned about each candidate during them, but it was interesting to see how different each of their styles are.

  • Halloween Pics

    And here they are, the Halloween pics!!

  • De Monday Morning Update

    I’ve been working on this since I posted last. It’s shaping up nicely, although my CMS of choice keeps giving me fits of “no, I won’t do it the way you think I will… you do it MY way or not at all, buddy” attitude. I still think we’re on track for a mid-week launch. Daws and I need to finish writing one section, go over the site again and check for weirdness (ok, unacceptable weirdness, the closer this gets to launching, the weirder I feel), and then make it live. Look for it on Wednesday.

    In non-nonDependant news, we had a peachy-keen Halloween. Pictures of pumpkin-gutting, carving, Trunk-or-Treating, and the real deal are forthcoming as soon as I can get them off the camera, exported, imported, uploaded and rebuilt, you’ll be able to see ’em. Hopefully during lunch.

    I have a month to pull of a huge complex project here at work. It’s the first day of actual production, and… nothing. I’ve got coder’s block. I’m trying to get excited about writing these JSP’s, and building all these little blocks of markup happiness and it’s just not coming. I’ve reorganized the project directories three times now, created a bunch of empty includes and written some horrible comments for places where code’s going to be. What’s my problem? Code, come outta my fingers!! Get thee to my screen!

  • Announcing Something Crazy

    I’m starting a new website. I’m still going to keep blogging here, and keep lawver.net as my personal presence on the ol’ it-ner-net. The new site will hopefully be something else, something larger than just my family. It will hopefully become a community, large enought o influence things and diverse enough to stay honest.

    Cryptic, huh? To clarify, ok, wait, to start to clarify I have to explain something else. I’ve been watching with a lot of interest the political process for the past couple years. I’ve moved around a little on the political map trying to define myself by a party, a candidate or a group. I figured out recently that I’m going about it all wrong. I don’t belong to one single party, candidate or group. I realized that the way things work today in politics is wrong. I have a sneaking suspicion that things have always worked this way, and people (or just me) are now waking up to it because we have access to vast new quantities of timely data, and a cacophony of new voices. We see things as they happen, before anyone can grab ahold of them and put their spin on it. Politics is not about right and wrong. It’s not about doing what’s best for the people politicians represent. It’s about power (thanks, Dawson, for helping me clarify that). Because money is so integrally tied to politics, money equals power. Those with money get things done, whether they’re individuals, corporations or large, well-organized groups. I realized that I am no represented. No matter who I vote for, they’re probably owned by those donors or by a party who’s only interest is the collection of power.

    The political landscape is in sad shape. Maybe it’s always been that way, and I’m just waking up to it. Either way, it disgusts me in a way I’ve never felt before. I’m angier than I’ve ever been about anything in my life. I have a feeling that I’m not the only one. They say that the country is polarized between Right and Left. I think that for a very vocal minority, that’s true. I think for a good portion of the country, they could care less. For everyone else, which I have a feeling is a very large percentage of the country – the so-called “silent majority” that both parties try to claim – we feel helpless and unrepresented because the parties have moved so far to the deep corners of the political spectrum and are beholden to groups that we just can’t stomach supporting.

    Now that I’ve told you how I feel, let’s talk about what I want to do about it. I want to create a community. I don’t want a community defined by political parties, toxic buzzwords or preconceived notions. I want to find the silent majority. I have a feeling that it’s this great chunk of the American populace in the middle places of the political spectrum that’s just waiting to find a way to do something, or so disgusted with the process that they’ve dropped out of it. How do I find this mythical group? Since I’m not a terribly smart guy, or that organized, I’m falling back on what I do. I build websites and applications. Since I don’t have the time right now to learn PHP, I’m relying on software that already exists (Drupal), and trying to tweak it enough to make the site what I want.

    I’m hoping the site can turn into a place where people can talk about what’s important to them – the issues that really matter – without resorting to name calling, tired old arguments and party lines. I hope that by honestly discussing issues, we can come to some consensus. If we can find out what the silent majority wants, or at least the things that most of us can agree on (I have a feeling it’s things like campaign finance reform), we might be able to exert some influence on the process. I want politics to be about the greater good – independant of campaign donations and bought influence. I think the internet is the way to pull it off. The web allows for instant and cheap communication, and communities independant of geography. It allows for connections that none of us thought possible even 10 years ago.

    I’m planning on launching the site in the next couple of weeks, once I get the templates and features ironed out. I have no expectations for this project – just hope. I hope it turns into something useful, powerful and real. I hope it becomes something larger than just a couple people shouting into the void. I really hope it becomes a community, and that community can come together behind common goals and get things accomplished. I don’t know what those things are yet… but I want to find out. If you’re interested in helping out, drop me an e-mail, or better yet ping this post or leave a comment.

  • Eddie Izzard at Warner Theater

    The Eddie Izzard show at the Warner Theater last night was perfect. I was a little thrown off when he came out with boobs. I was fully expecting drag, but I’ve only ever seen Dressed to Kill, and he definitely had no boobs during that show. Makeup? Yes. Boobs? No. That took a good ten minutes to get used to. Oh wait… let’s go back to how the perfect night started out perfectly.

    After our horrible Sigur Ros Experience driving into the city, I decided that this time we’d try the Metro. The show started at 8, and we were supposed to meet friends for dinner in the city at 6:30. I left work at 4. We left the house at 4:30 (I know what you’re thinking – TRAFFIC! just wait…), made it down 28 to the toll road to 7 to Gallows road to the Dunn Loring Metro stop in 45 minutes, which left us 45 minutes to get on a train, get to Metro Center, get off and walk half a block to the theater… which we did, and this is all true. We got to the restaurant 15 minutes early and had a wonderful time waiting for our friends, who never showed up. That was the only unperfect thing about the evening. They got stuck in traffic – and we didn’t.

    We had dinner at Chef Geoff’s, and it was great. They didn’t seem to mind us sitting there for forty-five minutes having only ordered a virgin bloody mary. We finally gave up on them, and ordered and had a great meal. The food there is great and the wait staff is professional and friendly without being cloying or insincere. It’s right across the street from the Warner, so if you ever go to a show there, definitely check them out.

    We sat down ten minutes before the show, just enough time to remove coats, get comfy, and talk for a couple minutes before the show started… and here comes the show.

    If you’ve never seen an Eddie Izzard show before, they’re a little crazy. Here’s only a part of the topics he covered in a little over two hours (in no particular order):

    • Airport security for transvestite British citizens born in Yemen

    • How superheroes are just like transvestites

    • The futility of slidey poles in firehouses

    • The Doppler Effect

    • The Trojan War

    • Perseus and Medusa

    • Achilles

    • Flies

    • Fundamentalism

    • Abraham was the big grand daddy of the three major religions

    • Mary and the Angel

    • Riding horses

    • Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens: If Neanderthals had won game shows and Shakespeare would have sucked

    • The invention of fire

    • How inventing the wheel isn’t all that cool, it’s the guy who invented the axle we should all be talking about.

    • The ancient martial arts of sashimi and fookendo

    • The benefits of being a guy with boobs (they’re slimming…)

    And that’s just the stuff I can remember. There was more, lots more. If you have the chance to see him on this tour – do. Go, get tickets now. And remember, this is all true.

  • As Promised – Apple Pickin’ Pics!

    Max and the Apple Picker

    As promised, here are the pics I took when Max and I went apple picking. You can see for yourself… we had fun. Next year, we’re going earlier to get the lower apples and raspberries!

  • Super Monday Morning News

    Did you know there’s a Lawver Funeral Home? And it’s in Akron, Ohio. That’s a creepy way to start out Monday morning.

    In Super News, I’m hopefully going to see Eddie Izzard tonight at the Warner Theater, as long as Ticketmaster delivers our tickets in the mail today. Way to bring it right at the wire, you overcharging jackasses.

    Yes, I’ve been quiet. Yes, I’ve been downright silent. I’ve been vacationing! Max and I went to pick apples and a pumpkin on Saturday (pictures and details forthcoming). I’ve been playing with Drupal, and playing SSX3, which the jury’s still out on. I’ll give you my review later this week after I’ve spent a few more hours with it.