Nostalgia

Well, I decided while I was eating lunch at my desk to look at some of my previous post from last year around this time. Ranging from Easter to the weather being so miserable...remember the 23 days of rain straight we had in March??? :)

I have to say, it's been fun to look back at all the changes and posts and how many things I recorded across the year. Easter, toddler beds, loss of binkies, and bottles..isn't it amazing? Last year at this time I was still getting over those little surprises.

This year, so far it's been the aquarium (never did get those pics posted...I do have them), Doodlebops (no pics there..too dark), and our latest endevor: The Hockey Game. *wide grin*. I got some pics, but not sure how they turned out. We'll see.

I took time off in the morning on Thursday to go to Longs Marine Lab in Santa Cruz as apart of the pre-school field trip we had. Kids had a wonderful time. I had 2 kids this time (as opposed to my previous post to Gizdich Ranch where I had 4). Irene and Brooke plus 1 teacher. Everyone appeared to have fun. I got some pics on my phone..again not sure how they turned out though. Will take a look this weekend if I get to take my time off.

Back to work!

This was from the night we shipped Delphi 2007

I was originally afraid that I would say something I shouldn't just before we shipped, so I simply put this in Drafts until I had a brain to publish it. This was written the night we shipped Delphi 2007. Enjoy
----------------------- Waves on the screen as we move back in time! --------------------------
Well..it's 10:20pm and I am here at work for a second day in a row of late nights (after working all weekend) attempting to ship our product. My brain, which I thought was originally mush, has a startling level of clarity right now. I'm surprised actually as I expected to be dropping out of my chair. What's more, I am validating under a German OS. This is another surprise to me. When we first merged core and intl QA I thought I would never get used to looking at non-english OS'. But here I sit and wing my way through our set of test cases that need to be run in order to verify we have a working ISO and test file set.

I know I am rambling, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to blog right now, but I figured eh...I am sitting here watching installs occur. There isn't much more by brain could do and I am dying to write for whatever reason. I have to tell you, I never thought I could drain the power out of my little IPod Nano as I have these last few weeks. I dare say that it might be what's keeping me from dropping on the floor like my little one will do on occasion curl, up and go to sleep. It could be that the cupcake and Chai Latte are also helping my poor little sappy brain to function...who knows! But music is a wonderful thing and a good motivator when you need just the right thing.

I shall continue to ramble here....It's been interesting to watch these last few months mince through the meat grinder of time. I've watched our company make a turn around, show an enthusiasm I thought dead, and bust their butt's off with long weekends and long hours to result in the culmination of tonight. Last night was everyone pulling together and installing the latest ISO's on every OS under every language we have available to test on for Ent, Pro and Ent_Trial SKU's. That was an amazing feat. I seriously thought I was going to see smoke rise up out of my office as all of my machines ran multiple VM's on servers and Workstations throughout the day, into the evening and on into the night.

I turn now, however, and find that my installs have finally finished which means I now need to run away and get the real work done. Send a few prayers to the shipping gods this night. We're going to need it.
--------------------- Waves appear on the screen as we move forward -------------------------
Well during that night we not only revalidated our ISO images for Pro, Ent and Ent trial on various OS's on various languages, but we also had to test our new Akami system on various OS's with various languages (which is our ESD system). Anyway talk about an amazing amount of "How the hell do we test this? How long does it take to get the digital bits up that we need? Did anyone think to test this with a field test build just for fun?...ummm..."

Needless to say, QA is already starting to come up with points on contention to do things differently. Hopefully this will never happen again.

I learned something about cross-stitch

I have come to the conclusion that if I ever do another cross-stitch switch plate, it better be for something serious..cause wow. It's tough doing the last finishing touches (like back-stitching). I'm almost finished though :) Irene really likes it too..so I can't complain. As soon as it is finished, I'll put up pics on flickr. :)

stress central

Well things are working getting to a head on work... it's stress central with the joy looking forward to a fun filled weekend of working at least all day Saturday and if I am not done then by Sunday. :( I have *never* had to get a babysitter to watch Irene on the weekends until now and man!! I am feeling soo guilty. She already doesn't see us a good portion of the time during the week because of work...now I have to tell her that I can't take her to the park on Saturday because of this. :( I had hoped I would never have to have a babysitter on the weekend because of work. I am hoping things will go well today...keep your fingers crossed.

A quick blog...

Well in an effort to have a small family day today (Sunday) before I needed to work, all of us decided to go spend my gift certificate at Target from the Raffle early this week ( I won $30 certificate). Well we decided to go over the hill to the Target on Blossom hill road. I picked up a new Nintendo DS game called Hotel Dusk: Room 215. Neat mystery game that uses the DS like a book..neat concept - couldn't resist. But that actually wasn't what I wanted to share.

After picking up the game, we decided to cruise the mall to tire the little one out and I wasn't ready to go home yet. :) We found a Borders...I figured hey..let's go in. As we walked around a book caught my eye. I had to share it. It's c alled In the Company of a Courtesan: A novel. It sounded intriguing. Here was the description:

Renaissance Italy enchants in Dunant's delicious second historical (after The Birth of Venus), as a wily dwarf Bucino Teodoldo recounts fantastic escapades with his mistress, celebrated courtesan Fiammetta Bianchini. Escaping the 1527 sacking of Rome with just the clothes on their backs (and a few swallowed jewels in their bellies), Fiammetta and Bucino seek refuge in Venice. Starved, stinking, her beauty destroyed, Fiammetta despairs—but through cunning, will, Bucino's indefatigable loyalty and the magic of a mysterious blind healer called La Draga, she eventually recovers. Aided by a former adversary, who now needs her as much as she needs him, Fiammetta finds a wealthy patron to establish her in her familiar glory. Through Bucino's sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued narration, Dunant crafts a vivid vision of Venetian life: the weave of politics and religion; the layers of class; the rituals, intrigue, superstitions and betrayals. Dunant's characters—the steely courtesan whose glimpse of true love nearly brings her to ruin; the shrewd and passionate dwarf who turns his abnormalities into triumph; and the healer whose mysterious powers and secrets leave an indelible mark on the duo—are irresistible throughout their shifting fortunes. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

I put this on my amazon wishlist. I nearly croaked at the $14.95 on the stands..but Amazon has it offered by online sellers for $6.45. Am intrigued.

I've become an Access geek??? What the...???

Well I just read an interesting newsletter that had originally been marked as Junk. I subscribed earlier last year to become a Palm OS developer and thus got the tools to mess around with. It's free..soo why not? Something good to learn, right? Well I knew that Palm Source (makers of the Palm OS) had been bought by a company called Access. This newsletter I got this week said the following:

Last October (2006), ACCESS announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, PalmSource, Inc., had begun the process of changing its name to ACCESS. As part of that process, ACCESS is renaming all products that originally had Palm-based names. The first product to be renamed is Palm OS, which is now known as Garnet OS.

So now I am scratching my head. What the (you enter your favorite phrase here). I am curious as to how they think this is a good idea? Palm I thought was a revered name..but I guess now with the hardware and software split, hardware gets to keep the name and software doesn't???? I guess that's how businesses work, right??

I don't know..maybe this will be a good thing as they can branch it out more..give it a look that they don't think will fly with Palm users might or might not be ok with under the Palm name??? Who knows. Anyway...I am still struggling to get the stupid examples to even build and run on my machine. I am sure I've done something wrong. *sigh*. I may have finally found the tutorials that I am looking for a while back but haven't gotten around to trying it again. We'll see.

Anyway...I shall get off my soap box now. Just was surprised.

Dora & the Journey to the Purple Planet

I totally forgot to blog about this! Irene got her first PS2 game! For Christmas, she received from her great-Aunt and Uncle the game called Dora the Explorer: Journey to the Purple Planet. She LOVES it. She got the controls down the first day after playing the Earth section. After that it took her about a week to complete all the planets and send her friends home.

She now asks for playing that more than watching TV (which I'll take any day). I highly recommend it to those looking to get a game system. This game also is available for the Gamecube and subsequently the Wii (in case you're looking for longevity that way). The reviews up on Amazon reflected that kids around 3-4 had large amounts of play time with it while those on the older end of the range (6 or so) got bored with quickly.

Once you've played all the levels the child can go back to any of the planets that he/she likes at any point. Irene currently likes the "Red Planet". She's got a big fascination with Robots lately for some reason, so anything with Robots (be it Dr. Who, Scooby Doo, or Dora) is her type of thing.

We saw Doodlebops!

Well, Irene made it to her first concert ever... :) We went to see Doodlebops. The one draw back: it was a 1pm show. Now for those of you that aren't aware, I will explain. Irene still takes naps (most of the time). So we were a bit nervous about the fact that the concert was right when her nap was supposed to be. Attempting to find a way to get her to sleep in the car was not a certain one. Momma thought: oh! well we'll tire her out by running a couple of errands to the store etc and then come home and then having her ride her bike around! Right??? yeah...umm..right. Believe it or not we did do that..but when we went to get in the car..she still didn't nap *sigh*. Momma napped..but Irene didn't (btw: Dadda drove in case you were wondering).

We get there and find that there is a sharks game, a Scientology convention, Doodlebops and a Volleyball competition going on all at the same time. Momma started getting very nervous and biting poor Dadda's head off. But he got smart!!! "Here, I'll drop you and Irene off. Go find the seats and get her settled. I will find a parking spot and meet you there." Momma, seeing logic in this, pulled Irene out of the car and headed towards the San Jose Civic Auditorium.

We got close and Irene began to freak out at all the people. Momma didn't flinch. She picked up Irene, settled her on the hip and took her inside. We found (naturally) more people. Irene squirmed down and had an amazed look on her face. Kids were everywhere. Suddenly, Irene zeros in on one thing - the flashy wavy wand with a flag on top. Who was Momma to argue? one toy right? How much could it be? (I know...you're saying you poor sap..what are you thinking???). Anyway $20 later for the one wand we make it through the main doors on the main floor. Irene walks through with absolute wonder and a little bit of "freaked out" running across her face. Mickey Mouse club house music was playing and Bus Driver Bob was on the stage entertaining the kids for a bit. She stopped dead in her tracks looking at the sea of people. The fear that Momma had dreaded was beginning to appear. Momma bends down and attempts to distract her. Nothin' doin' . She's in partial freaked out mode now..not willing to move anywhere. Then she spots other children going up to find seats. She decides she wants a seat too. Momma is pleased - we're making progress :)

To the amazement of all, Momma and Irene make it to their seats and Irene is showing serious excitement at this point. Freak out is gone and she is happy - wand in hand (I'll try to get a pic for you). Dadda arrives soon after. The last part of the puzzle was her buddie Brooke (from school). The two of them couldn't stop talking about the Doodlebops all week! Short version: Brooke's parents thought they were supposed to be at HP Pavillion when in reality, it was at San Jose Civic Auditorium. They made it about 5 minutes after the show started. We were so pleased. :D

The show was nice, simple, and fun. The girls were absolutely thrilled. Momma took Irene to the front to try to dance, but there were so may "bodies" that Momma couldn't cope and we stopped at the outskirts. Irene of course got very very upset and it was now an hour later than nap time would have started. So the two started to join together. Needless to say, we decided to stay in our seats from then on. Brooke's mom took the picks because Momma was lame and forgot her camera :p. So when I get links to post, I will do so.

So how about that for a nice long post??? :P

I learned something new...

Well I learned something. Awhile ago I switched to Google as my home page. It's all wonderfully customized. In doing more customization tonight, I realized that Google has an RSS reader called Google Reader. It's quite cool. I was able to add stuff here on blogspot and others on 360.yahoo.com. Both read quite well and I added the reader gadget to my home page on google too... :) It's quite neat. Anyway..the new thing I learned tonight...had to share.

*cough cough* *sneeze* blowing away the dust

My god...it's been forever since I posted!!! Last time was Thanksgiving!! *sigh* Well it's going to be a short one today because as some folks know, when time crunch occurs everyone seems to wig out and want to stress others out with it. My latest you ask? Let's try having somone upstairs looking for me and says he can't find me only to let managers know this without even trying to oh..let's say send an email first. *ripping hair out*

Anyway nuf said for the moment. Just had to get that out. Busy as all snot over here. Almost as insane as when we try to ship everything all at once..early..oh..wait..isn't that what we're doing??? *rolling eyes*. We need some emoticons here

My little one has moved on from diapers and pull-ups *snuffle*

Well...I supposed it had to happen sometime. I say it with mixed emotions in all honesty because Irene is growing so fast. She chose her own panties from Disney store and we worked throughout the entire Thanksgiving break to teach her that she should not go in potty in her pants anymore.

Wednesday: *rolling eyes* I truly began to question the sanity of the idea of potty training.

Thursday: break. Thanksgiving day was not the day I was going to tackle this. Back to pull-ups

Friday: Back in panties. 2 poopies - but went pee pee on the potty regularly.

Saturday: 2 pee pees - but went poopy on the potty regularly

Sunday: She got the idea! But we were setting timers this entire time to make sure we'd get her to go every 30 - 40 minutes. Needless to say we were expecting the worst on Monday.

Packed to the gills in clothing and undies in the backpack along with everything else, we trudged to school to find that the schedule was expected to be relaxed. The assistant that usually helps with the younger kids to use the potty and deal with diapers got an amazing shock when she came back to work. Every child that had been in diapers (5 of us from what i understand), all came wear big kid undies that day. Boy was that a shock!

Monday evening I went to pick up Irene fully expecting to have a bundle of ickey poopy undies to have to deal with. Much to my surprise and with each day so far, Irene has been telling the teachers that she needs to use the potty. *dancing happy feet* !!! I am so thrilled.

I must admit though that this continues to show how quickly Irene is growing and how quickly she will no longer need me. *snuffle* *sniff* I know it is silly to say that, because she will always need me (if the # of times I call my mom in a day is any indication), but there is just something sweet to watch and when it is gone, all you have are the memories. Oh well...such is life...and it will move on.

Nice thing: bills go down on the # of diapers and pull-ups we buy on a weekly basis. So much for needing 3T - 4T pull-ups that I bought. :) Anyway, so now we're down to diapers at night and pull-ups at nap. Once this is dealt with it will be amazing. Not sure when it will be, but we'll see.

I am CodeGear!

Well,
Borland (where I worked) finally decided to make a decision *gasp*. DevCo /DTG/Developement Tools Group is now a wholly owned subsidiary. We basically write a big fat check to Borland at the end of the year and otherwise go in our own direction.

I am CodeGear! Hear me roar! More as I understand things better

Holy twin bed MOMMA!!!!

Well, I have to say that we have never had such a wonderful time as we have getting Irene into a twin bed. Yes...I said twin bed. :) She's been in a toddler bed since January of this year. That one was a battle convincing her that sleeping in her toddler bed was ok.

We had taken a different tact this time and decided to "discuss" the matter with her earlier on in the week. Dadda took up the conversation first:

Monday:
Dadda: "So..Irene...would you like to get into a big girl's bed?
Irene: "Suuurrrreee."
Dadda: "Ok. Momma and Dadda will get something setup next weekend."

Wednesday:
Momma: "So..sweetie, Dadda said you'd like to get into a big girl's bed. Would you like that?"
Irene: blank look
Momma: would you like Princess'? or Buzz? or Tinkerboo on your new bed?
Irene: TINKERBOO!!!
Momma: "OK, love. Momma will see what I can find"

Thursday:
Momma: "Ready for a girl's bed?"
Irene: "NO!!!"
Momma: "um..okkay..we'll talk about this later."

Momma decides to take to the winds and stop off at Kmart and see if I could find Tinkerboo. My GOD! I hit the jack pot. I not only found the flannel sheets, I found a comforter and dustruffle. If I get the guts up on the $$$ I'll go back and get the valance for it too..but $15 each and I need 4 to make it worthwhile started to make me feel just a bit unhappy. :(

I stop off at home and "display" the tinkerboo treasure right at the front door. I run back to work totally excited and dancing for the afternoon.

Irene gets home and see Tinkerboo. The immediate "ooooo..it's beeeuuutiiiiffuuuull !!!" came out. Dadda pipes up with "So, Irene. Would you like to get your big girl's bed set up?"

Irene: "NOO!!"
Momma and Dadda look at each other and Dadda says: " ok sweetie. we'll wait. "

We get past dinner and things are calm. Irene goes and discovers her sheets again. She looks at me. I said to her, "You want to pull your sheets out?" Irene's eyes brightened. I figured she'd go out to the living room and pull her sheets out. She instead takes it in her bedroom. Thinking nothing of it, I go to clean up dinner.

Suddenly I get a holler from Marcus of "ummm sweetheart. You might want to see this."
I rush into her room and nearly fall over laughing. She has stripped her toddler bed down to the mattress pad and is trying with all her might to get her new tinkerboo sheets on her bed. Marcus and I look at each other and sigh. We ask again "Sweetheart, do you want your new sheets?"

Her eyes brightened and nods. We end up on Friday night at 7:30 (1/2 before bedtime) setting up the big girls bed. Unfortunately, after trying to wash the sheets out, the smell was so bad still that we opted not to use the new flannel sheets. Ended up taking those back to Kmart today after 2 washings. The smell was that of someone having dunked the sheets in petrol..it was awful. nothing but the sheets were affected. :(

The rest of her bed, came out wonderfully. Needless to say, she didn't want to leave the bedroom much less the house today *sigh*. The bed is adorable and it works really well with her butterfly/flower garden room. :) Will try post a pic or two as soon as I pull them off the camera.

I repeat: Holy twin bed, MOOOMMMAAAA!!!!

PS: she's not cried or argued once about going to bed this entire weekend.

A wonderful dinner

Well I have to say that La Fondue is one of the best places to go to celebrate. Regardless of whether you're celebrating life, birthday, anniversary or just another day. To all of you who made dinner last night such a treat, Thank You.

You will always make my life full of spice and enjoyment.

Other things in life

Well, now that the Halloween post is complete we can go on to other things. Well, I've been working on the cross-stitch piece. For those that don't remember, I've been stitching a butterfly switchplate for Irene's room. I am about 1/2 way through and have learned a load about stuff about what not to do when it comes to working on them. Ex? never do the cutting to remove the holes where the switch & the screws go until *after* you're finished stitching. It's been challenging. :)

Am trying to decide if I am going to do a couple more huck towels after this or if I will start in the big one I want to work on or to continue work on Repunzel for a while. We'll see. Crochet has been calling my name lately and I have a lace piece that isn't finished yet. Thank god I keep maps to know where I left off. :)

With the weather change comes fires in the fire place, Thanksgiving and Christmas, The Nutcracker. It brings with it all things cozy and the enjoyment of cooking, baking and making things for people. We'll be home this Thanksgiving. It's looking to be small so far and then going to my parent's place for Christmas this year.

So all in all, hopefully this will be a calm holiday season (yeah..right..what planet am I on????). :)

Halloween - there and back again quick???

Well, we've moved on through Halloween, and our story is short and sweet. :) The story? The conversation went on like this:

Momma: Sweetheart, ready to go trick or treat?
Irene: NO Trick or Treat!!!

This conversation went on, over and over for about a week prior to halloween. The day of? The same. We even went so far as to take her next door to try it out. My god, you'd think we were killing the poor kid!

Thus the end result: 1 house, 1 candy and all done. She didn't even want to hand out candy or go to the door! She was ALL DONE with halloween. :)


Welll...better luck next year!

Birthday Tidings and Events

Well, my birthday has come and gone and the day was WONDERFUL! I had so many well wishers it was amazing! The most amusing of the day: My mother forgot that it was my birthday - she remembers everything else in the world so something has to give in this push and pull of life. :) Needless to say I was amused when she figured it out.

Another event! My little one had her first field trip that day! I decided to take a 1/2 day off to go and be a driver/care giver if I could. Turns out I took 4 children, including my own plus one of the pre-school teachers. IT WAS SOOOO much FUN!!! We went to Gizdich Ranch on the outskirts of Watsonville. I had never been there and had only heard about it recently. There were a total of 24 kids. It was amazing how these teachers were able to get the children to respond to them and listen. They sat through a 30-45 minute tour of the area and got to pick out pumpkins at the end. Needless to say, Irene wants to take her pumpkin everywhere these days. This morning she asked if we could open it so she could see the seeds. :)

Anyway I took 2 boys and 2 girls and it was GREAT to listen to them chatter and talk about things. Irene I think was in shock to have other kids in the car with her and so was quiet through out most of the trip. Needless to say it was fun and funny and a great way to spend my birthday.

I ended up picking up 3 pies + syrup + jam + teas. I had way too much fun. I got a Very Berry, Apple, and pumpkin pies. The Apple and pumpkin had just come out of the oven and they were amazing. I had quite the time picking up stuff there at that ranch. By the end of it though, Irene was in pieces and tired. She didn't want to eat while we were at the ranch but chowed the entire way home. We got all the kids back to school and I figured Irene would crash.

Guess WHAT! She skipped her nap all together *sigh*. She was in a good mood right up till about the last 10 minutes while trying to get ready for bed. It was a crying fest until we had a story and then she crashed in bed. Her little face was so tired looking I was amazed she didn't just crash on the couch long before 7:30.

Anyway, it was a wonderful evening. I even got a new video game (Dragon Quest VIII for the PS2). Irene *loves* watching us play now. So I'll have to play some more tonight *rolling eyes* gee..you can seem me fighting that one, can't you ;-)

Cross-Stitch update

Well, I thought I would post a quick one before I leave for the night. I am making excellent progress with the switch plate now. I have also learned something else about them. Turns out that if you were to buy switch plate items (without a pattern) they come with this Vinyl Weave "fabric" to cross-stitch on. The "fabric" I guess is what is safe to stitch on if you should ever have a spark on the switch it won't catch it on fire (at least not due to using this stuff I guess). So now I might be on a Switch plate craze after I finish my huck-towel craze.

It's quite an amazing process, but it's definitely harder to stitch on because the vinyl doesn't give like regular Aida or linen cloth.

Just had to share my tidbit on that. When I get more of the piece done, I'll post it here to show what it looks like. Because the other pieces were gifts, I couldn't show mid-process what the product might look like ;).

Off to pick up the little one!

She's discovered Little Ensteins....

Well..my little one has discovered the wonders of The Little Ensteins. *rolling eyes*. She's got momma and dadda doing the "pat pat pat" on the knees and making squeezing with patting to the shoulders to help Rocket (yes..that's it's name) get between tight spaces. So if you're looking for birthday ideas, this is one as we have nothing Little Einsteins yet (only what we get off of cable with the DVR).

just had to share

Inspired by Music

The Immortal Bell

Ringing of the bell this night, a sign of dread to come.

Continues tolling out the time, a sign to flee for some.

Daylight slinks away in haste, as midnight undertakes

Darkness creeps on silent wing, the shadows are awake.

Undead return to mortal haunt, staggering lifeless things.

Floating ghosts move and jaunt, without the use of wings.

Doors remain closed and locked, against the fear of death.

Mortals huddle, close to sleep, shivering with frosted breath.

Candles flicker with the wind, bringing with it fear.

Signs are brought in hope of light, reflecting like a mirror.

Join the bells in immortal song.

While sleeping souls wake ere time long.

Respond ye well, the bell that tolls.

And save ye all, immortal souls.

(c) 2006 SE