Jackson turned 6 months old.

Jackson turned 6 months old yesterday and what a milestone it was.  He is now in “little scientist” mode and trying to grab and study everything. His legs are pretty strong and he really likes to play Push Off and Just Out of Reach games. When the toy is sitting…just…out of reach, you can see his frustration build until he musters his his knee underneath him to….puuuuuush. “He got it! Yeah!!!!!” So much fun :-). 

When he wakes at morning’s first light, I scoop him out of his crib. I hold him looking over my shoulder and, out of the corner of my eye, I see a giant grin is on his face. Oh no, it’s not for Daddy. It’s for Ruby who followed me in. Ruby is his buddy and little shadow.

Jack has now tried sweet potatoes, carrots, sweet peas, apples, pears and…..prunes. The prunes are, by far, the most disgusting looking. They taste okay and I personally like prunes. They simply look -literally- like raw sewage. The sweet peas are his favorite and he devours them.

Let’s see, what else….he can grab hard, loves rollie-pollie, only sleeps on his tummy and his butt up in the air, kicks his feet while Daddy jams on guitar, splashes in the bathtub and pacifies himself with thumb-sucking. And finally, tonight, he started sticking his tongue out at mom and I. LOL!

Tampering With Traffic Lights To Increase Revenue Of Red Light Cameras

Techdirt: Cities Caught Illegally Tampering With Traffic Lights To Increase Revenue Of Red Light Cameras. Like most crazy articles, I found this one originally on Slashdot. The other interesting tidbit from this article is how well-understood the traffic patterns are for safety…yet are not employed. Lame!

Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better

Check this website out for some interesting tips on sleeping better. Lifehacker Top 10: Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better. #10 and #2 really work for me, as well as going to bed on a relatively empty stomach.

Jackson’s Tummy Sleep

This is the second night that Jackson has rolled himself over onto his belly to fall asleep. Lastnight was the very first time that he’s ever slept on his stomach. You’ve got to remember that the pediatricans and all the books are so adamant about forcing infants to sleep on their backs to avoid SIDS. This position is recommended until they can roll over on their own. So, Jackson has now matured to that point but it still makes his parents nervous.  Although Kristen was nervous the entire time, I only started to get nervous when he moved a bit and placed his face straight into the crib mattress. I went and gently flipped him over onto his back which he then immediately rolled right back over onto his belly.  Apparently, he really likes that belly position.

Chateau Dame De Fonroque

We were browsing around the newly remodeled Cascasde Meijer’s wine area. Kristen was looking for a wicked, awesome white wine called Conundrum. Kristen asked the Sommelier where to find it. He quickly pointed it out to her and just as quickly suggested a similar white. “If enjoy Conundrum then I think that you should really give the Dame De Fonroque a try” said the Soimmelier. Apparently, the De Fonroque is very hard to come by but half the price of Conundrum. Well, he power of suggestion work. 

The Dame De Fonroque is a blend of different grape varities and is trying to acheive the same type of complexity that Conundrum offers. We thought it was a very enjoyable wine. It is definitely a semi-sweet. I usually don’t care for the sweetness but this wasn’t too bad.

Jackson’s First Owie

Tonight, Mommy was cutting Jackson’s rather long finger nails. Nearly complete, she just need to finish with is pointer finger. Then, in mid snip, wiggley Jackson jerked his little fingers, and the cutter nipped his baby finger tip :-(. He only cried for a second or two. I think Kristen was more traumatized that Jackson.

Breckenridge Vanilla Porter - 4 Stars

Beer Notes:

Dark amber color. It is full bodied but light at the same time. A very hard combination to achieve. The only other beer to come close to this is Guiness, in my humble opinion. There is a creamy palette and the vanilla comes thru very slightly on the aftertaste. It is noticeable but subtle. It is a very drinkable beer any time of year.I don’t care what the retards at ratebeer.com have to say. This is tasty brew…..slrp.

Purchase Notes:

Cascade Meijer, by the bottle, $1.29

  

Messy Morning

This is gross but hilarious. I’m at work and I just received this email from Kristen:

Hey,

I just wanted to share with you that your son officially won the prize this morning for having the biggest, messiest poop in the history of bowel movements.  I go to change him, and realize as I’m peeling off his shirt, that poop has managed to travel all way up his back, and has even managed to reach his right sleeve and go down his arm!  So he won himself a nice bath before naptime.

How’s your morning going?

Too bad she couldn’t get any pictures for me to post

OS X Software Development Sucks

In modern software development, the objective is to create flexible, modular architectures that allow the software to quickly adapt to changing business requirements. There are a number of side benefits with organizing your software in this manner.  In particular, by modularizing your software into independently distributable components one maximizes the original cost of development due to the reusability of that component. For example, rather than copy-n-pasting lines of code everywhere, you bundle the damn stuff in a DLL. That dll can then be reused. Moreover, that DLL can now have its own life-cycle.   

I’ve performed the majority of my software development on the windows platform. In this environment, we are apparently spoiled by the vast numbers of 3rd party software vendors that sell components. In most cases,  you simply drop them right into your software project and with minimal integration (especially with .NET components) you just start using them right away. You can purchase Graphing libraries, Math libraries, Custom GUI Controls, Networking libraries and there are usually 5 or six offerings to choose from per component. By having this components “ready-made”, it allows me to spend my precious time and money on getting my specific business logic working an into my customers hands, rather than completely wasting it on trying develop it myself or managing a bunch of loose files into my project.   

In my frankly brief experience in Mac development, it seems that commercially supported 3rd party software components is non-existent.  I’ve been considering the development an application I’ve been mulling over in my spare time. I’d love for it to be on the Mac with it sexy user interface, high performance libraries and 64-bit support. However, about 3 weeks into prototyping i’ve struggled to get even the basics down. Database support is nearly none existent. A DataGrid user control is no where to be found. The OutlineView sucks ASS! And there are no 3rd party diagramming libraries to speak of.    

This effective has put a full stop to my Cocoa development for this project until Apple decides to update their control choices and the 3rd Party Software Vendors start to market themselves better.    

Oh, and there is no way in hell I’m gonna entertain Java for this app on this platform.  

New Posh Fishing Outfit

Sporting a stylish plaid trouser with complimentary milk stain, Jackson is ready fish in style. His shirt has an print of a large fish swimming in water which matches his socks that have little worms to taunt the fish. Thanks mom :-(