The first 12 years of my life were lived with a perfectly square, plastic or metal encased, brown wood grain colored tv with a rounded gray screen (if my memory serves me correctly.) We would watch Perry Mason, Hawaii 5-O and listen to Paul Harvey while eating macaroni and cheese and drinking milk. The picture was static gray and white - much resembling Pennie's fur now that I think about it.
I think the VCR was introduced when we moved to my parent's current residence. We had one channel - 12 - and Home Improvement was our re-run. For some reason Perry Mason didn't play there, but we would sometimes watch movies on the weekends. I remember that TV being black and having a remote. Brett threw it at me once, but I dodged and it hit the tv screen. Pretty solid thing; didn't phase it.
In college I inherited a 214 pound tv like my original one (only there was twice as much tv box as screen and it was oblong) from a graduating student. I should have perceived the relief on his face better - I thought it was due to his finishing school. We used this to watch the news in the mornings when the reception was favorable.
Once married my tv situation changed slightly. We had a more recent model and the rim around the screen was a smaller percentage of its overall size. We could fit a large radio with speakers, stacks of CDs and DVDs, cords, cables, remotes, video game systems and that TV in our entertainment center. Still, seeing no need for cable, we had few channels and little need to turn it on. In fact, one night, studying for some of my classes, David experimented watching American Idol. We haven't seen that show since that night almost 7 years ago. I think he may be afraid of it.
THEN, a few years ago David won a 40 inch flat screen TV the likes of which we never imagined in our home. It actually filled up our entertainment center. Still, we resisted applying for cable. For four years now we've watched Seinfeld and the occasional news broadcast on our glorious tv...in static...with bunny ears. We are fine with this. We are even fine with the scoffing of our friends who shake their heads at the shameful waste of such a tv minus cable. And I had come to terms with the bunny ears all askew on our mantle.
But the countdown has begun. Soon, all tv will be digital or nothing. And yet we've avoided the necessary black box. When contemplating what to do we just shrugged our shoulders. And then Ben came to visit. He insisted that we must already have digital capability, but we'd gone over that and we didn't...or so we thought. With a few twists of a dial and scans of the controller he produced a perfectly clear channel 11 (with the potential for more!) WHAT?!
The problem is this: the digitalness still requires an antenna. And that antenna is sitting ON my vase.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Technology woes: laptop, internet, email, phone
Laptop: Battery dies approximately 2 minutes and 16 seconds after becoming unplugged. No audible, colorful or pop up warnings that the unpluggage has happened. Miles does it discretely.
Internet: The icon says its working, but pages cannot load approximately 50% of the time. David says this is a server problem and has increased the percentage of working internet time to 55% by pulling the server box out from its "decorative" position next to my lamp and vase to the center of my nightstand - cords and flashing lights prominently displayed. This is lovely.
Email: Gmail. My link to civilization when I have nothing to actually talk about rendering the cell phone useless except as a camera. The obscessive compulsive program randomly has the desire to reload itself and believes it reassuring to the user to give a countdown such as "reconnecting in 78 seconds, 77 seconds....2 seconds, 1 second....reconnecting in 78 seconds...." Though this can go on for upwards of 78 minutes, it refuses to acknowledge that it often takes many cycles of the proposed seconds to successfully reload which would graciously allow the user to do more productive things instead of standing by (which of course they cannot do otherwise.) Upon finally finding itself it celebrates with the ever increasingly annoying message "and...we're back!" like it just accomplished a great feat.
Phone: Home phone that is. First off the caller ID usually reads "insufficient data," but this is not consistent. It has many different captions for a single calling number and apparently uses a shuffle function to decide which one to apply to a specific call. Second, though it is used infrequently, a portion of the time it says "I'm sorry, you're not connected to the network...try again!" (Or something to that effect.) Perhaps the server box needs to stand on a pedestal for this to remedy.
Internet: The icon says its working, but pages cannot load approximately 50% of the time. David says this is a server problem and has increased the percentage of working internet time to 55% by pulling the server box out from its "decorative" position next to my lamp and vase to the center of my nightstand - cords and flashing lights prominently displayed. This is lovely.
Email: Gmail. My link to civilization when I have nothing to actually talk about rendering the cell phone useless except as a camera. The obscessive compulsive program randomly has the desire to reload itself and believes it reassuring to the user to give a countdown such as "reconnecting in 78 seconds, 77 seconds....2 seconds, 1 second....reconnecting in 78 seconds...." Though this can go on for upwards of 78 minutes, it refuses to acknowledge that it often takes many cycles of the proposed seconds to successfully reload which would graciously allow the user to do more productive things instead of standing by (which of course they cannot do otherwise.) Upon finally finding itself it celebrates with the ever increasingly annoying message "and...we're back!" like it just accomplished a great feat.
Phone: Home phone that is. First off the caller ID usually reads "insufficient data," but this is not consistent. It has many different captions for a single calling number and apparently uses a shuffle function to decide which one to apply to a specific call. Second, though it is used infrequently, a portion of the time it says "I'm sorry, you're not connected to the network...try again!" (Or something to that effect.) Perhaps the server box needs to stand on a pedestal for this to remedy.
ouch finger sticker
Nothing is more anticipated to Miles than the morning shower - MY morning shower.
From the moment he could breathe he made it very clear that he cannot tolerate being alone on the other side of the shower door. Over the months this has evolved from the simple need to keep the door open a crack with him and his bouncer in vision, to Miles and toys arranged on the shower rug close enough to feel the mist, to the persistent opening and closing of the shower door and kamikaze toys, to finally the frequent occurrence of having a diapered and clothed boy climb INTO the shower.
The precautionary routine these days is to declothe Miles prior to my shower, shut all enticing drawers and doors and exits in the bathroom, pull out a box of neglected toys and hope. (That today he might stay dry.)
Yesterday was an inside the shower with mommy day...which was decided, apparently, right as I had rinsed my last. With Miles content, I allowed him to continue my shower even after I was out and dressed. This worked surprisingly well. 10 extra minutes of sitting in the stream of water all by himself. Mommy's shampoo, daddy's body wash - he felt like such a big boy! But today...
Today he seemed content to sit outside the shower and lean only his top half in to splash and address the architecture of the drain. Hair and shoulders soaking, but sparing the fresh diaper. The mishap occurred when Miles poked his fingers a bit too far down said drain. This produced a yell. This is typical. But when I tried to help the fingers out it came to my attention that they were wedged in there quite thoroughly. Upon the rescue of the fingers Miles had tears. This caused me to pick him up (fresh diaper no longer spared) and kiss the offence.
The outcome of the incident: a bleeding finger with peeled skin and a phone call to daddy. Miles recovered approximately 2 minutes after regaining the possession of his fingers due to therapeutic cuddling and good advice from daddy - "he needs a band aid!"
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
sleep training/baby proofing...the cat?
So, I think I've figured it out. Its not Miles' - its the cat.
Shortly after bringing Miles home from the hospital we realized we had an issue. The cat, whose bedroom privileges had been revoked, became disgruntled and crafty.
For the benefit of our nanny (and the house in general) the cat spent a couple days a week in the bathroom. Mind you, he had all the comforts he needed for a nocturnal being - food and beverage, an open window, things to hide in and lay on, his box, things to play with if he so desired... but he was not satisfied with this arrangement. So assuming the sounds of a thief, he learned, in one reportedly frightening hour two days into his daytime confinement, to open the bathroom door. We can best deduce that he learned this by repeatedly jumping from the counter onto the lever door handle. Once he mastered this, he could not be stopped. Now he simply reaches up and flubbers the handle a few times until the door of choice creaks open. Well, we simply could not have this. The day after I woke up in the night to noises in Miles' room and spotted the black creature getting comfortable in Miles' crib - we invested in lever door childproof apparatuses, years before we would need them for our son. These really aren't so bad though David is not impressed at the way I tend to leave them a little incompletely set much of the time (hey, they click when latched which could potentially wake the boy during a precarious nap.) Have you ever counted the doors in your house? Times them by $7.99 plus tax and you'll realize why we don't have these devices for each and every door yet - just the vital ones so far.
(One comment: all day, every day the cat SLEEPS. Only when it is restricted from certain activities does it apparently feel the need to combat those restrictions.)
Anyway, we've recently tried "sleep training" Miles who is already a pro - sleeping an average of 11 hours straight in the night. The problem is this: no matter what time we put him down to bed he religiously wakes up around 6 AM. This means that if we have a particularly late night, he gets considerably less sleep overall because he will not, does not sleep in. WHY. This is the question. My conclusion? It must be the cat. This is the evidence:
Whenever we arrive home, no matter if we leave for 10 minutes or 10 hours, ALL doors lacking the large plastic handle covers are opened. We've come to accept this as a manageable nuisance, until recently it has come to our attention that the cat carefully schemes to also open the doors in the early morning hours. This is now known because I now find myself laying awake in dreadful anticipation of an all too certain early morning diaper. This door unlatching is a noisy endeavor including multiple doors spanning two levels of house and is undoubtedly what wakes Miles.
The solution seems straight forward enough: simply open all the nonchildproofed doors before going to bed. I don't trust it though. Something tells me the cat will find other ways to irritate the household.
Shortly after bringing Miles home from the hospital we realized we had an issue. The cat, whose bedroom privileges had been revoked, became disgruntled and crafty.
For the benefit of our nanny (and the house in general) the cat spent a couple days a week in the bathroom. Mind you, he had all the comforts he needed for a nocturnal being - food and beverage, an open window, things to hide in and lay on, his box, things to play with if he so desired... but he was not satisfied with this arrangement. So assuming the sounds of a thief, he learned, in one reportedly frightening hour two days into his daytime confinement, to open the bathroom door. We can best deduce that he learned this by repeatedly jumping from the counter onto the lever door handle. Once he mastered this, he could not be stopped. Now he simply reaches up and flubbers the handle a few times until the door of choice creaks open. Well, we simply could not have this. The day after I woke up in the night to noises in Miles' room and spotted the black creature getting comfortable in Miles' crib - we invested in lever door childproof apparatuses, years before we would need them for our son. These really aren't so bad though David is not impressed at the way I tend to leave them a little incompletely set much of the time (hey, they click when latched which could potentially wake the boy during a precarious nap.) Have you ever counted the doors in your house? Times them by $7.99 plus tax and you'll realize why we don't have these devices for each and every door yet - just the vital ones so far.
(One comment: all day, every day the cat SLEEPS. Only when it is restricted from certain activities does it apparently feel the need to combat those restrictions.)
Anyway, we've recently tried "sleep training" Miles who is already a pro - sleeping an average of 11 hours straight in the night. The problem is this: no matter what time we put him down to bed he religiously wakes up around 6 AM. This means that if we have a particularly late night, he gets considerably less sleep overall because he will not, does not sleep in. WHY. This is the question. My conclusion? It must be the cat. This is the evidence:
Whenever we arrive home, no matter if we leave for 10 minutes or 10 hours, ALL doors lacking the large plastic handle covers are opened. We've come to accept this as a manageable nuisance, until recently it has come to our attention that the cat carefully schemes to also open the doors in the early morning hours. This is now known because I now find myself laying awake in dreadful anticipation of an all too certain early morning diaper. This door unlatching is a noisy endeavor including multiple doors spanning two levels of house and is undoubtedly what wakes Miles.
The solution seems straight forward enough: simply open all the nonchildproofed doors before going to bed. I don't trust it though. Something tells me the cat will find other ways to irritate the household.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Miles realizes now that if he's sneaky he can do what he craves to do
Miles is 16 months old. I think today I spent 15 minutes reading on the couch (while he was awake) for the first time since he was born. Its just so impossible usually. Anyway, I could see him out of my perpheral vision and he was contently and boyfully playing.
(He did really good when we initially taught him "no touch" - his eyes would get wide and he took the instruction with all the seriousness intended. Lately however, he has become aware that if he manages to do something bad anyway, he can enjoy atleast a few seconds of "fun" before he has to be averted.)
Anyway, upon further inspection of his activity today, I found that he had sneakily peeled off all four rubber corners of the coffee table which were meant to protect his head from the edges. He knows he's not allowed to tamper with them and is proving more and more that he has a deviousness to his nature. I am still smiling about it, but hopefully he doesn't realize.
(He did really good when we initially taught him "no touch" - his eyes would get wide and he took the instruction with all the seriousness intended. Lately however, he has become aware that if he manages to do something bad anyway, he can enjoy atleast a few seconds of "fun" before he has to be averted.)
Anyway, upon further inspection of his activity today, I found that he had sneakily peeled off all four rubber corners of the coffee table which were meant to protect his head from the edges. He knows he's not allowed to tamper with them and is proving more and more that he has a deviousness to his nature. I am still smiling about it, but hopefully he doesn't realize.
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