Ultranormal

  • It’s the little things

    In my rush to get out the door to take mom to the airport for her big family reunion trip to Texas, I forgot to wash my hair. It’s really put a damper on my day. I have dirty hair and it’s sad. My scalp itches just a little. It’s disgusting. I’m sure nobody noticed, which is nice, but it’s still just not right.

    I’ve been staying up too late and working too hard. I’ve been neglecting the little things that make life good, like playing with my son, kissing my wife, reading magazines and books (it’s been two months since my birthday and I still haven’t finished Emergence), writing things for this site, surfing my favorite blogs, feeling relaxed at all. I pace when I’m not doing something, and feel like I’m missing something when I am doing something. I’m always running somewhere, whether I’m sitting or standing.

    But, in good news, I just found out (after writing the first paragraph) that I’m getting a shiny new Powerbook from work! It’s the not the brand new ones, but it’ll do. It’s coming tomorrow, and the best part is that I had no idea it was on its way! I wasn’t even sure it was going to be approved! Now I have a reason to come in tomorrow…

  • Flummoxed

    I just like the word. I’m not really. I’m not even sorry that I haven’t been posting. I’ve been steadily busy on a host of important projects and thinking about a redesign. If my scanner was plugged in, I’d post some doodles. I’m thinking of abandoning my stolen spaceman and doing my own. Astronauts with pointed sticks are a ton of fun to draw, and I’m trying to find the right mix of POW and whimsy while retaining the general look of my current spaceman. All of those goals combined with my under-used drawing skills will make for an interesting combination. Maybe I’ll let Max design it.

    I think I’ve hit my stride again. I’m not stressed out, even though the workload is pretty crazy. I’m just chugging along turning out some really good stuff. I’ve written my first real API for public consumption, a ton of frontends for a myriad of products and basically kicked a lot of ass in the past two weeks. I fit in nicely in my little group up here on the fourth floor, in my poffice with a door.

    No Segue, just news… And now on to Max and his amazingness. This week, he wrote Jen a birthday card that actually said “Happy Birthday, Mommy”. I’m not sure how much help he had with it from Grandma, but he’s getting really good with his letters and numbers. He writes the 5 – 10 words he knows over and over again, just for fun. He’ll sit down and go through a legal pad writing out numbers and letters in different colors, as happy as he could be. It’s fun to watch.

    Max has also started making up games. His current is the Oh no, I’m falling… aaaaaahhh game. He’ll take all the cushions off the couch and put them on the floor around the couch. Then, he’ll sit or stand on the couch and in a high pitched voice (higher pitched than normal anyway) will start going on and on about how he’s falling, oh no, and then go “aaaaaahh” and roll off the couch on to the cushions. It’s all very entertaining.

    To wrap up, life is good. Now, back to work.

  • Done

    I know there are other things for me to do, but I feel finished. I feel I could just pack up and go home right now. Is that wrong? I’ve worked my butt off today. I completed a bunch of other peoples’ work, fixed problems, tested fixes, fixed tests and went to lunch with my little family. Is there more I could do? You betcha. Should I? Probably. Will I? I seriously doubt it. I’m done done done. All that’s left is to play some JK2 and go home.

  • The Toddler Recap

    I went down to the basement this morning to get a clean shirt. As I was heading back up the stairs, I hear a loud, plaintive “KEV-IIiiiiin!!!” from the top of the stairs. I thought for a split second that Max had gotten stuck in the garbage disposal or something. But no, it was worse – much worse. My wife appeared at the top of the stairs, hands on hips, grim expression on her face and said, “Max stole my last caramel egg!!!” Relieved that he hadn’t done anything horrible or disfiguring, I snickered and made my way up the stairs. My toddler son was sitting in the armchair, smile on his now sticky, chocolatey face, half-eaten caramel egg in his hand. My wife glared, and then laughed, then in her frustration said, “Now I have to wait until next Easter to get more!!” Yes dear, you do. But wasn’t the look on his face totally worth it?

    In other Max news, he’s reading and spelling now. Yes, he’s two and a half, and he keeps picking up new words and I’m not sure how. We encourage him, but definitely aren’t forcing him. He loves to count, practice his letters and numbers and read stories. He brought Jen a piece of paper this morning (don’t get me started on how much paper this kid goes through) and said, “This spells ‘no’” and sure enough, he had put “no” on his paper. For longer words, he knows all the letters, but when writing, they take a decidedly abstract, Paul Klee-ish look to them. He made a Mother’s Day card for Jen that said, “I love you Mommy”, but it ended up more like “I mo o lo mm v y u e”. The letters were all there, just in a new order.

    There’s more going on with my favorite toddler, but I need to get back to work. Maybe I’ll get Jen to start posting here too… sweetie?

  • The Last Amazing Flight of The Kevinburg

    In all the hubbub at work this week, I haven’t even had time to tell you the very cool thing the search business folks did for me. A long time ago, we did this big deal with another company that used to give people remote-controlled blimps. I whined and whined and whined that if I did all this work for the deal, that I should get a blimp. I never got it. I did get some great swag from them, like a remote-controlled robot, a cool picnic backpack and a nice polo shirt. Alas, there was no blimp.

    As a thank you/congratulations present, the guys got me a blimp!! It was about three feet long, two feet high, and had Where the Wild Things Are pictures taped all over it. It was cool. The first test flight went well. It was just around a little open meeting area. Then, for the rest of the week, it floated in my office, because I was too busy to actually do anything with it.

    Friday afternoon, I’d had enough. I needed to take a break, so a couple of my friends came over and we took the blimp down to the CC2 Atrium. The building I work in now is a big four-story rectangular donut, with this big open space in the middle from first floor to ceiling. I couldn’t think of a better place to try the blimp out. It was entirely too tempting. We fired it up, let it go and puttered around a little over our heads. Then, things went terribly wrong. The blimp hit the air blowers at the second floor and shot straight up to the fourth floor, where it was grabbed and mercilessly grappled by the huge air intake vents. We ran up the stairs (because it was well out of range at this point) and tried in vain to use the poor little propellers to free it. It was held fast. So, I went back to my desk and fetched the Koosh balls, in the vain attempt that we could free it by bludgeoning. No luck. Then, we went back to my office where I humbly called facilities and explained the situation and was summarily bitched out for not realizing that the smoke detectors on the fourth floor could have easily gone off, clearing the building and summoning the fire department. Now, in fear for my job, and being blamed for disturbing people trying franticly to finish work before the weekend, I rushed back to the fourth floor balcony to watch my poor captured dirigible and wait for her galant blue-shirted rescuer to arrive. I expected a big ladder. Instead, he went through the vents. I noticed some clanging, and then a hairy hand reached through the vent and grabbed the blimp. He yanked it towards him and uttered the words I knew were coming, “Am I trying to save this thing?” Of course, I told him to do whatever he had to. He popped it and dragged it through the vent, then told me to meet him downstairs.

    I guess this all ended well. I learned a little about the fire system in my building, and the guy who performed the rescue wasn’t all that upset. He thought it was kind of funny and said people do stupid stuff like this all the time. But, my poor blimp is crumpled in a box in my office… never to fly again; at least not at work.

  • There’s apparently another Kevin Lawver

    There’s apparently another Kevin Lawver in the world. I was pretty certain I was the only one. He’s apparently married and has facial hair just like me. He’s an “evangelist” for a church in Wisconsin.

    Did you ever see Are You Dave Gorman? Well, I’m starting, Are You Kevin Lawver. We haven’t met in person, but there’s another Kevin Lawver out there. How weird is that?

  • Striking Constistency Last night was

    Striking Constistency

    Last night was the last real night of bowling. Our team, The Misfits (man, that name sucks… we’re coming up with our own name next time – like The Pothole Fillers or something), put on an amazing show of offense, heretofore unseen in our collective bowling escapades. We all broke our averages by more than 10 pins, and were absolute models of consistency. Instead of my normal infuriating 103 average, I averaged a strapping 129. It felt great, and better yet, we won! We won handily. There was much hand slapping, fist pumping, manly comraderie to be had. Yes, I am a bowler.

  • That’s not fair!

    If you haven’t heard it yet, the Snatch soundtrack is amazing. An odd mix that flows nicely.

    But, music is not the topic of the day. Fairness and its ultimate misinterpretation by little girls is the topic du jour. You may ask yourself how a geek like me would have any knowledge of this topic. You would be wise to question. How do I know? Well, I’m a church-going fellow (don’t ask me why, don’t know myself sometimes). Since I’m a Mormon, that means I get called by God to do certain things. My current calling is to teach Primary. For the un-Mormonified, Primary is little kids’ Sunday School. I’m a teacher. Who do I teach? I teach the 7 year-olds who will turn 8 during this calendar year. I have six little girls in my class and they drive me nuts. I don’t understand little girls. They’re so fragile emotionally. They have these weird ideas about “fair” and right and wrong that just drive me nuts.

    I normally wouldn’t even talk about here, but I made one of them cry yesterday. I tried and tried not to have to, but there was nothing I could do. In Primary, we have Opening Exercises where, each week, a different class is assigned to give the prayer, read the scripture for the month and give two little talks on a certain topic. The little Primary leaders give me four slips of paper, and I go to my class and ask for volunteers. Usually, it’s like pulling teeth to get people to volunteer. This week, four little hands went up when I asked who wanted to give the talks. How am I supposed to handle this? Should I ask for divine inspiration?

    We had a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament to decide. Two brackets and then a final to determine talk giver , then take volunteers for talk and repeat the process. Since this was the first time we’ve had to assign talks with this class, I figured, hey, this is fair. Right? It’s a game of chance, the girls actually do the deciding by their luck and skill at Rock, Paper, Scissors (no wild tanks or airstrikes – was I the only one who played that way?).

    When the smoke cleared, four little girls had something to do next week, and one didn’t. There were four things to be assigned, and 5 little girls who wanted to be involved. Someone was going to be left out. The left out little girl started sobbing that she didn’t have anything to do, and that she sat out LAST time. I tried to explain that I wasn’t the teacher last time, and that the other girls said she wasn’t left out last time. There was no convincing her of the method of my madness. So, I gave up, and went on with my lesson about Noah and his amazing stinky, pitchy, three story, livestock laden ark. I didn’t get very far before she started wailing again about the unfairness of it all. I lost it. Now, to be clear, she was already crying. I turned to her and said, “Look, you need to go look up ‘fair’ in the dictionary. This is completely fair and impartial. I’m not picking on you. You had the same chance to be able to give a talk as everyone else. I had no empirical data about what happened last year, because I wasn’t your teacher. I am writing down who did what this time, and next time, those who didn’t give a talk this time and want to next time will be given first dibs. If that’s not good enough for you, I’m sorry. Life just isn’t fair. The sooner you realize that fact, the easier life will be.”

    Did I do the wrong thing? Am I a bad person for pointing out the obvious?

  • Overload I’ve been writing a

    I’ve been writing a lot this week… you just can’t read it. I’ve written e-mail after e-mail, document after document, and I’m still not done. Now, I just want to play, even though I should be writing a roadmap for this brilliant idea I had. Yes, I know it’s Saturday, but the week just doesn’t seem long enough to get everything done.

    Tim left for home yesterday. I don’t think I got to spend enough time with him while he was here. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be like now that we’re both married and living across the country from each other. He starts med school in the fall, and well, I don’t know. Things are just different.

    And it doesn’t get easier from here. I’m spending the month of May on yet another top secret project called The Skunkworks and won’t be able to tell you much more than the name. Next week, I’ll be sequestered in a conference room making plans, designing things and “thinking outside the box”. And just when I was getting used to my new office.

    Ok, that’s enough for now. Back to conquering the world…

  • There are new Max pics

    There are new Max pics up that Uncle Steve was kind enough to take: Playing in the backyard at Grandma’s. There are some really nice shots of my little boy. Good job, Steve!