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Foster Bass's journal | |||
Please help with some important research.
This is important. Please take it seriously. You are helping me and Chrissy.
Poll #1216879 Like-minded people
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All
Do you know my wife Chrissy?
View Answers
Yes I know her well, in person.
6 (26.1%)
I have met her or know her online. 8 (34.8%)
I do not know her. 9 (39.1%)
In what range does your age fall?
What is your sex?
Do you remember when Regan fired the Air Traffic Controllers and what were/are your thoughts?
What were/are your opinions on "Meat-head" on All In The Family?
What were/are your opnions on "Hawkeye" on M*A*S*H?
How did you feel when Disco and/or Rollerskating went out of style?
Does it surprise you that clothing costs less today than it did when you were a kid, whether you adjust for inflation or not? What are your thoughts on the subject?
If you live in, or are familiar with Nyack, do you wish there was still a bowling alley in Nyack?
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25th June, 2008. 9:24 pm.
I removed most of my LJ friends from my friends list today. I just don't have the emotional energy to keep with with people anymore. Like last time, I kept people I know or plan to know some day. I will probably still check up on other people when I have the time. Because of trouble at home, I need to reduce the time I spend on things like LiveJournal.
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18th June, 2008. 9:29 pm.
40,008,964
40,008,964. That is how many times I've told my son Teddy that I love him. Apparently, he's been keeping count since birth. That works out to about 12 times a minute (assuming I say it in my sleep too). I think it's probably a fair estimate. He's a really great kid.
I took the day off from work so I met Teddy at the bus stop after school and took him out for some shopping and dinner. We bought some Webkinz and a Wolf Cub Scout Handbook. Then we went to the Nanuet Restaurant for pizza. When we got there we bought $10 worth of QuickDraw tickets with our last $10 in cash.
While there I referred to the guy on TV as "The Weatherman" and Teddy corrected me telling me that he is a Meteorologist. Then he giggled as if to say either "how could my father not know that" or perhaps "I bet my father is impressed that I know what a Meteorologist is."
We ate our dinner and won $59. Good thing too because when it was time to pay we learned that they don't take checks or credit cards. That would have sucked not having any way to pay for dinner.
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12th May, 2008. 9:19 pm.
Ear pain (the bad kind) and leg pain (the good kind).
Today started out really badly. I got to work an hour early to get a jump on what is usually the worst day of the week. On my way in, someone yelled to me that he needed some help getting a report together for the boss. While extracting and formatting the data, I realized we had screwed up last week and lost out on probably $3,000 in revenue. Small change to a billion-dollar company, but with the economy being what it is, every penny is counted.
Around 11:00, Teddy's school nurse called and asked me to come pick him up because he had an earache (an affliction I am all too familiar with). I called the doctor from the car to make an appointment. When I picked Teddy up, we had about over two hours to kill before the appointment so we stopped at Hook Mountain to find the geocache we couldn't find Sunday. With the updated coordinates, it took under 30 seconds. As soon as we got to the spot (which was about 200 feet from where we parked, on a paved driveway), I spotted a good hiding place, and uncovered the cache. Then we went to lunch and still had time to stop and buy him socks on the way to the doctor.
The doctor said he has an ear infection and a perforated eardrum. He gave us some medication and a referral to a specialist. He also said that Teddy's tonsils are so swollen that they are touching each other.
When we got back,
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
chrissyg was home so I went over to Rockland Lake for a short bike ride with the club. It was chilly and damp, so the path was nearly empty. On the last lap I noticed how early it was and that if I raced back to the car I could make it home for a quick shower and go to Kung Fu. I had never gone to Kung Fu after a bike ride before. It's a good thing it was beginner bike ride and a beginner Kung Fu workout because my legs hurt.
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10th May, 2008. 3:15 pm.
Failed attempt at geocaching
A new geocache popped up about two miles from my house this morning so I hopped in the the car, called
matthewciuccio & Suncandle, and headed to Hook Mountain. Walkin' Ed was at the site when we arrived, but left a short while later. We looked for almost two hours and could not find the cache. I am guessing either the coordinates were wrong (which is excusable but annoying), or the hider didn't actually place the cache yet (which is inexcusable and will be punished). I would have been open to the possibility that I just missed it, but Walkin' Ed has found 2,600 geocaches. He knows what he's doing and couldn't find it either.
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5th May, 2008. 10:15 pm.
Dr. David Brian Swedlow (1946-2008)
Dr. David Brian Swedlow (1946-2008)
Originally uploaded by fosterbass.
David was a kindergarten friend of my mom. Then, fifty years later, her husband. His mom and my grandma were best friends, so we were like family. We were also related though a strange series of marriages. He lived in Ohio while I was growing up so we didn't see him often, but his visits were always fun. He lived his life like a constant adventure. There was always time for one more stop. One more tourist attraction. One more smile.
David could listen to someone boast or complain for hours. It seemed no matter what the situation was, he had lived though some form of it and could share a valuable lesson. If you didn't want to talk, he would happily do the talking and still end up understanding the situation.
My mother married David in September 2000 but unfortunately, they separated a few years later. He and Chrissy remained close, chatting online frequently. In some ways David was her closest friend.
David passed away on Sunday afternoon after suffering a heart attack at a baseball game. He was 61 years old.
Current mood:
sad.
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26th April, 2008. 2:10 pm.
Hudson River Greenway
I rode with the Rockland Bicycling Club today. We started in Englewood, NJ and rode across the George Washington Bridge into New York City (my first time riding on that bridge). Then we rode down the Hudson River Greenway all the way to Battery Park. The line for the Ferry to Ellis Island and Liberty Island was 90 minutes long, and all tickets for entry to the Statue of Liberty had already been given out. That must be very disappointing to tourists. There were seven of us on the ride, plus a few hundred more that we passed along the path. The joggers, strollers, and stop signs slowed us down to a moving average of about 11mph, but it such a nice ride that it didn't seem crowded. Despite the lingering pain in my shoulder, I am really enjoying cycling again.
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26th April, 2008. 2:09 pm.
Going in Circles
DSC_5389.JPG
Originally uploaded by fosterbass.
Teddy is on Spring Break this week so I took Friday off and we went on the Circle Line. It is a 3-hour boat tour around the island of Manhattan, with a tour guide who points out interesting buildings and places on both sides of the boat. I hadn't gone on that tour in a really long time, but it remains my favorite NYC tourist attraction. The cost is $31 per adult and $18 per child, but the Entertainment coupon book has a BOGO coupon, so one adult ticket was free.
The boat was only 25% full, so we were able to move around to different seats and change our view a few time. Teddy and I spent about half the trip standing outside on the bow enjoying the wind and the amazing sights.
I still have a long list of touristy NYC things to do with Teddy, but this was high the my list because I love it so much. Next will either be the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. These types of of things can easily get neglected when you live a half hour away. It has always struck me as odd that people fly around the world to visit the attractions of NYC, yet people who live here just don't seem to care about all the cool things to do.
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10th April, 2008. 6:11 pm.
Watching Little Things Grow, Part VII
Teddy continues to get smarter every day. He doesn’t like to take chances, so he won’t challenge himself, but with a little encouragement he can read almost anything. His math skills are also improving quickly. He is starting to estimate and is starting to understand higher concepts.
His temper has become a little bit of an issue. He can’t stand losing games and since the person he plays with most is a terrible winner, it makes for a volatile combination. Teddy actually became violent last Sunday and had to go home (where he retreated to his bedroom and cried for an hour). The next day he went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Strep Throat, so I guess he wasn’t feeling well on Sunday, which may have contributed to his outburst.
The one area where I worry about him is that he hasn’t made any friends. I know it isn’t critical at this age because I only had one friend before age seven who remained my friend. The rest I met later. But, I still wish he had someone to play with. When people ask him who his best friend is, he says Alyssa, but he’s not in her class this year and only gets to see her on the bus ride home a few days a week. I wish they could play together more, but she’s very busy. He doesn’t like the kids in his class so we joined cub scouts so he could get to know some more kids his age. I guess it’s sort of working, but he hasn’t really clicked with any of them either. The kids at kung-fu are older than him. He gets along with them, but most of them don’t live in Nyack. I think this month will be the end of kung-fu for financial reasons, so it’s probably best that he hasn’t made friends there anyway.
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10th April, 2008. 6:05 pm.
Happy Birthday Teddy!
Today is Teddy’s birthday. Seven years old. I got him a few little things that he wanted, but he has to wait another 17 days for the present he really wants (Mario Kart for Wii) because it isn’t available yet.
Today he got a metal Darkrai box with pokemon cards in it and the Pancake Puffs Pan (as seen on TV) that he REALLY wanted. Chrissy also got him a shirt with the Chinese character for “dragon” on the front and his initials on the back. He isn’t too excited about his birthday this year -- probably because we are having a hard time scheduling his party, but that’s a topic for a different entry.
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25th March, 2008. 2:21 pm.
I Got The Guy
Follow-up on the last entry... We managed to shuffle some things around so we could hire the guy I interviewed last week. He will work mostly for the Marketing department at first, as a consultant. If I am right about his ability to learn quickly, we will be able to convert him to a full-time employee in six months. At that time he will work for the IT department.
I am really glad my boss and my colleagues here agreed with me on giving this guy a job, even though it isn't exactly the job we interviewed him for. I will have to keep doing some of the work I was trying to get rid of, but in the long run it should be worth it.
That is if I don't quit first.
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20th March, 2008. 9:32 pm.
The right guy, but the wrong job
I have been interviewing candidates for a Java/J2EE job for the past week. Most of them are qualified, but not perfect. The candidates so far have all been pre-screened by an agency, so we are getting good candidate, but my colleague Sam and I are being very picky because we have to be able to depend on the person we hire to really get the job done.
I have interviewed a lot of people in my career. I have also read several books on interviewing programmers. I know what kind of person we need for this position and have been comfortable in my ability to choose the right candidate.
Then I got thrown a curveball.
( Read more... )
Current mood:
aggravated.
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29th February, 2008. 6:10 pm.
$729 at the Apple Store? No, thank you.
My mom's Powerbook has been acting up. The trackpad seems to be taking orders from an unseen force instead of from actual user input. I reset it per Apple's instructions, but the problem keeps returning so I told my mom to bring it to the Genius Bar to have them assess it. The AppleCare contract has expired, but they are usually reasonable with obvious hardware issues.
They told my mom that because of the age of the laptop, she needs a new battery for $129 even if it seems fine. That is ridiculous. The batteries on that laptop were recalled, so I mailed in her battery and got a brand new one about five months ago. She uses the laptop about an hour a week, so the battery is practically new.
Next they told her that her only choice was to replace the trackpad at a cost of $300. That's the only choice? Really? How about using a $20 USB mouse instead?
Finally, before doing any repair, they told her she needed a $300 Firewire backup drive to backup her 1gb of photos and documents. A backup drive? Really? How about a 49-cent blank DVD?
I told her to cancel the repair request and demand the money back for the firewire drive and the battery.
This kind of thing makes me want to beat the shit out of somebody.
Current mood:
angry.
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28th February, 2008. 8:42 pm.
Everybody was Kung Fu Teaching
This is "buddy week" at our kung fu school so Teddy went to the beginner class and brought one of his friends from Cub Scouts. I went right after work -- as I always do -- to watch the class.
About halfway though, the instructor needed to talk to a parent about something, so she looked towards the parent seating area and said "Mr. Bass, please take over."
Huh? Me? Teach? In my work clothes? I don't know how to teach! I despise being the center of attention. I tried to get over this fear in high school by offering to do the pre-show announcements for the drama club. My brother and friends still make fun of me for how badly I did it. But now I was being called on to lead a class of nine kids aged 5-11, with their parents watching. Yikes.
The kids beginner class is basically the same as the adult beginner class, so I was familiar with the material, but doing it and teaching it are VERY different. A voice from inside kept saying to me: "When put in a leadership position, take charge!" But another voice from inside kept telling me: "You really suck at this and everyone in the room is watching you screw up!"
The instructor returned after about four hours (or four minutes, it's hard to be sure when under that much stress) and I was free to return to my seat. I was shaking and sweating for the next 20 minutes or so.
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8th January, 2008. 6:42 pm.
Shutdown
Last year, the power company informed my office that on Sunday January 7th, the power to our building was going to be turned off a few hours. Rather than tax the generator unnecessarily, our unix admin scheduled a cron job to run shutdown scripts on all the servers. At 6:00am, everything shut-down gracefully, and a few hours later, he went to the office and turned everything back on.
Turns out a "one-time cron job" isn't really ONE time. It's one time per year. So, yesterday morning at 6:00am, all of our unix servers gracefully shut themselves down. Unfortunately, Monday morning is a really bad time for an unexpected shut down at a retail company.
The guy would probably have gotten fired if he didn't quit six months ago to move to North Carolina with most of the Technical Services staff.
Current mood:
amused.
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3rd January, 2008. 8:39 pm.
Mr. Cellophane
Last year Chrissy and I had theater tickets on New Years Eve. We were invited to several parties and had to decline. This year we decided not to make any plans. We ended up sitting on the couch waiting for the phone to ring. It felt like we were taken off the A-list.
Tonight, when I brought Teddy home from Kung-Fu, Chrissy was eating dinner that she picked up from Turiello's. She also brought dinner home for Teddy.
Yeah. Feeling kind of lonely now.
Current mood:
lonely.
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1st January, 2008. 8:34 pm.
What has two thumbs and rides a bicycle?
What has two thumbs and rides a bicycle? This guy! I went on the first ride of 2008 with the bike club today. I hadn't ridden since March and I really missed it. We rode 22 miles at an average of 11.5 mph. It was short and slow enough that I was able to keep up without any trouble, but long and fast enough that my legs are sore.
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31st December, 2007. 12:20 am.
Turn that amp up, my ears are barely even bleeding.
Knowing that Santa was going to bring Teddy a Wii, I picked up a copy of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. I've always been a big fan of video games, but never owned a console system so I was very excited to get the Wii and also very excited to try Guitar Hero. I was NOT disappointed. I completed the game on the easy level today. I'll start over on medium tomorrow.
What's even cooler is that Chrissy--who hasn't liked a video game since Parsec, with the possible exception of Snood--even likes it. She's just started a band and is playing Slow Ride now.
We also really enjoyed Wii Boxing. Since we are all training in Kung Fu now and just starting some sparring combos, we are all really in the mood to start punching people. The Wii is filling that desire (for now at least).
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24th December, 2007. 10:51 pm.
Visions of Mario
This morning was my annual Christmas caroling gig with the Nyack Alumni Brass (and friends). It was the smallest group I remember - there were only five of us. That's unfortunate because the arrangements call for at least eight players. We managed to raise $435 in 90 minutes despite the small group. As always, the money will pay for the holiday breakfast at the senior center (open to all). That costs about $300, so the balance will be used for Midnight Runs.
Teddy is finally sleeping and Chrissy is wrapping his presents. I can't wait for morning to play some Wii games!
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3rd December, 2007. 10:07 pm.
Sneezy
I am a two-time sneezer. Any time I sneeze, I know I will sneeze a second time. I can't remember a time that I ever sneezed once or more than twice. Before today, that is. I sneezed nine times on the way from the library to my house. It's a four minute trip. I can't seem to get rid of this cough. It's been about three weeks now. I don't have a fever, and don't really feel sick. I don't have symptoms other than the coughing and tonight's sneezes. I'd like very much to stop coughing.
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