Headed North For Winter…

It appears my migration is complete. This blog will continue to reside at ebfryer.wordpress.com, though won’t be updated anymore. The Fry Side now lives at thefryside.com, and ebfryer.com now redirects to it.

I’ll see everyone there and am excited to have the bigger space to grow.

A Little Quiet…

Posting has been a little light here because I have finally had a chance to work on my new The Fry Side site. It’s actually live, www.thefryside.com, but I still consider it beta for the sake of me constantly tweaking it throughout the day.

So far, I’ve migrated all the posts, comments, and pictures from here. The broken piece of it all are my old video links. The coding for them isn’t a standard embed, but something that WordPress.com interprets for browsers automatically.

I’m uncertain whether it’s a good thing to take my main site off of the url that’s my namesake or not. But for now, it has worked out to keep my sites live while transitioning. The other thing is that with the URL change, those of you using RSS readers will need to subscribe again.

My goal is to be fully transitioned by the weekend and embed my first weekend video at this new locale. By then, also, anyone navigating to ebfryer.com should be forwarded right to thefryside.com so very little should throw anyone off. I’m big on making things easy. And if not, just let me know in comments or via email.

Distant Beeping…

Sitting down at dinner tonight, thinking of all the shoveling I have to do since the weather gods dropped three inches of snow, I heard a beeping or ringing of some kind off in the distance.

Me: What is that?

My Wife: Huh?

A Hungry Lad: [Face down gobbling a plate of grapes.]

Me: What is that noise out there? An ice cream truck?

M: No… [Stares at me in that special way.]

Me: Well, is that your phone?

M: No, honey.

Me: [I keep hearing that rhythmic beeping noise.] What on Earth is that noise?

M: Try a plow.

Me: Ooohh. Yeah, I suppose it would be.

M: [Laughing.] And now you have to blog this.

Damn.

Weekend In A Piano…

Reason 8,326,002…

Why my baby is cuter than all others:

She can naturally sport a Maggie Simpson do.

Apple Gets Cooler…

Brilliant and Hilarious.

Back By Popular Demand…

Since my link to an article on Metrication was so popular last month, I figured I’d put up a guide to converting to Metric.

The Trip Home…

– or –

Why I Took The Day Off From Work

We booked our return trip from California flying from Sacramento to Minneapolis/St Paul with a 45 minute layover in Phoenix. I’d been checking weather for a couple of days, seeing some snowfall in the Twin Cities, but mostly clear skies in Sacramento and Phoenix. Everything was going to go great on Saturday afternoon into night, so we could have Sunday to recuperate from a week’s sojourn.

My dad took my family to the Sacramento airport, helped me pack up the car seats to be strapped to my back, said his quick goodbyes, and headed back home. We went inside to the US Airways ticket counter and got in line. The line was a little long, but no worse than what we ran into with Frontier when we left Minneapolis.

The line did not move. People queued up behind us, but the line did not move. Clerks or tellers or whatever they’re called were at every station. The line. never. moved.

In Turlock…

Howdy folks! The family is here in Turlock at my folks’ house. Come on out if you’re so inclined.

I will try to finally set up Twitter to work from my cell phone so I can keep quick updates on our whereabouts.

Out Of It…

Yup, we’re in California until after the New Year, and yup blogging will disappear for a week. Toodles!

Merriment…

Some Christmas cheer for you all out there in Radioland. (And yes, the audio is a little goofy in some spots.)

Lolquoth…

(Found via Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures – I Can Has Cheezburger?.)

My son’s interpretation of the preceding Lolcat:

[snicker] He’s sitting on flowers.

[pause]

Woah! Look at his eyes! [snicker again]

Trio Of Droppings…

I.

Fellow Minnesota automobile drivers, I implore you to look toward your summer selves for guidance while operating your vehicles. I know that the first snow is always a little rough, what with the plows playing a little catch-up in clearing and salting, and the rest of us drivers remembering our winter sea legs as it were. That being said, by the third, fourth, or even seventh wintery precipitation, can we all keep in mind that the lines on the road are to be driven between and not straddled like a lady of the night advertising in a red light district?

II.

Here is how my mind rattles while shopping:

We’re almost out of vodka.

I don’t want to get Smirnoff again.

Hey look, Finlandia is on sale.

You know, I’m a fan of Jean Sibelius.

I purchase the “vodka born from the purity of Finland.”

III.

I just went shopping at Wal-Mart on the night before Christmas Eve. EYE YAM SOFA KING WE TAR DID.

Thanks, George Carlin. I’ll always be grateful.

Eighteen Plus…

So, M decided to introduce me to a show she found this evening. It’s about a husband and wife with 17 kids and another on the way. All theirs, no duplicates.

To me, it’s really unhealthy. They aren’t laborers, the children of serfs or a pioneer family in the 17th century.

[aside]

The leopard’s spots only look good on the leopard.

[back]

I can’t image being able to devote enough time to properly raise each individual child. So it seems to be a disservice to the kids. They are home-schooled on top of it, so I don’t know if that leaves them at more or less of a disadvantage. Given the choices and reasoning behind the parents, then most likely the former.

I had a guess that they were just trying to raise their own cult rather than recruit.

Given that all seventeen so far are J names (with yes, one named Jinger with a J, injenious!), I also thought it’d be damn funny if the next happened to get named Jamal after his true father.

Okay, no more holding back my own opinions: I think it’s just sick. And that’s what I said right to my wife, to which she just replied, ‘I know, that’s why I’m watching!’ I think she has a thing for train wrecks.

Thanks, photons, for keeping me wondering if y’all are waves or particles.

Would It Be…

Would driving around looking for a lodge and tavern be a cruisin’ for a brews-inn?

Tough To Take, 2…

Continued from page Friday…

I finally got the kids out of the door. We were a good twenty minutes behind at this point. The lass was dropped off at daycare without any fuss. She’s a pretty easy baby to handle.

The lad and I then headed off to my work and his school. Fridays have become our doughnut days. But those morning doughnuts are contingent upon us getting there in time to get them and eat them while hanging out at my work before his school day starts. This morning, though, we had no time. We went straight to his school to drop him off for class.

In the process of driving to the daycare then driving to the school, we were nearly in two accidents. The roads were a little crummy, so I took turns and stops nice and easy. But even being smart, we nearly got into two accidents. It was ridiculous and I always get more on edge when my children are in the car.

As soon as I put the car in park, I realized I had forgotten the presents. I nearly broken down right there. I was so pissed at myself. I specifically left the presents right next to the baby’s car seat so I wouldn’t forget them. I apologized profusely to my son, and bless his little heart he said, ‘It’s okay, Dad. I forgive you.’

I collected myself and we went in the door to find all the kids sitting around the middle schoolers who were caroling in the hall. I got the lad out of his snow gear and relaxing with his teacher. Then I was off to work.

Still pissed and driving to work a block away, yet another person nearly hit me. Over half an hour late to work and seething with anger, anger at myself and anger at the suburban moms who nearly crashed into me, I quickly got up to the labs.

I’m sure I looked as though the next person to bump into me would get their neck broken. My tech comrade saw me and asked what was up. I quickly vented about the whole morning so far. On top of everything, I knew one of three of us was out of the building, and if one of us isn’t around to immediately fix thing, hell tends to break loose. He said he had my back and not to worry. So I checked my mail really fast and headed back to my car.

I drove as fast as I safely could back home. I didn’t even shut off my car as I walked right up the stairs in my house and nabbed the presents. There they were, right on the ottoman as I left them so I wouldn’t forget. Have I mentioned how much I hate my brain?

I brought them back to the boy’s school. Thankfully I got back before they began their gift exchange. I went back to work and sat at my desk, head in my hands for a bit. I did manage to sneak out later that day to get some doughnut holes. My son definitely earned them.

Thanks, indoor plumbing. You’re the best.

The Big Three, Revisited…

McArdle ’splains the condition of the American auto industry:

The really miserable thing is that even a total bankruptcy may not be enough.   Wipe out the shareholders, cut the bondholders to the bone, shuck the gold-plated medical benefits, toss out the UAW contracts, close the dealers–and we still may be left with companies that cannot make a profit without a now-defunct financing business based on ever-growing loans to ever-poorer credit risks.  The Big Three, with the help of the UAW and all their other partners, has spent 25 years building a reputation for poor reliability and ugly cars.  Brands matter.  Once destroyed, they’re very hard to repair in the best of times.  These are not, quite, the best of times, are they?

It’s worth reading her whole post. Megan McArdle does a good job of explaining economics in English. It’s one reason I’m a big fan of hers.

Thanks, blogosphere. I’m glad to be here.

Inspirational Weekend…

Tough To Take…

I know I’ve said it before, but I hate my brain. It barely functions. I forget things before I have even taken two steps past registering information. I know I probably try to do too much and wind up feeling pulled in more directions than I can handle. And I’m not sure, but I think my body picks the worst times to decide that I need a nice cold or flu without my permission.

Sometime in the wee small hours of the morning, my daughter woke up quite distressed about something or other. My dear wife tended to her, though it should have been my butt getting out of bed. However, I managed to get stopped dead in my tracks by a raging fire on my throat. I looked through the cabinet for something, anything, that I could coat my throat with but to no avail. I wound up doing my best to get back to bed and sleep a couple more hours.

Well, rather unfortunately, that couple of hours turned into a few and I woke up about 90 minutes later than I should have. I got in and out of the shower as fast as possible, my throat still throbbing. I got the lad his breakfast and started getting the little lady dressed for the day and began rattling through my mind just what was needed for each of my morning destinations.

And oh crap, we forgot about the boy’s gift exchange! It was just for books, so we scrambled to find a couple that were in good condition. Once found, I wrapped them up and put them on the ottoman right next to the car seat so I wouldn’t forget them.

To be continued…

Thanks, everyone. (I read that on a sign on the way to work.)

Jokin’ With Jobs…

Apple Computers is rumored to announce a brand new, touch-screen fish finder in January. It’ll be called the iMackerel.