Category: Family
Jacob and the Amazing Technicolor Adding Machine
July 25th, 2011, 2 Comments
Jacob has been eagerly awaiting this day for at least, well, 2 days now. This morning he started asking questions. All day long he has been wondering how long until the big event. And that event is the arrival of the UPS truck carrying a special $8 package for him. And in that $8 package [...]
Pooh, Books, and Dads
July 18th, 2011, 3 Comments
If I think back to fond memories of being with my dad during my childhood, there’s one thing that always comes back first. It’s those late summer evenings outside. Dad often had outdoor projects going on of some sort. I’d go out there hanging around, maybe chatting, maybe playing with cats, or maybe doing something [...]
The Mennonite Mecca
April 9th, 2011, 3 Comments
I’d like to paint you a picture of the sorts of things that have been going on around here the past few months, and with growing fervor the past few days. I’ll start with church basements. Possibly a little chilly, but with a bunch of women getting together to make some quilts — along with [...]
A Proud Dad
March 16th, 2011, 11 Comments
I saw this on my computer screen the other day, and I’ve got to say it really warmed my heart. I’ll explain below if it doesn’t provoke that reaction for you. So here’s why that made me happy. Well for one, it was the first time Jacob had left stuff on my computer that I [...]
Lots of Snow, Being Stuck, and Fun
February 13th, 2011, No Comments
Those of you that watch my twitter know that we got dumped on with snow recently. The final estimate reported by local papers is 17 to 19 inches. That’s my car. You might understand why I went home at 1PM Tuesday and worked from home the rest of the afternoon. The county didn’t get the [...]
24 hours with Jacob
January 16th, 2011, 3 Comments
Friday, I wrote about the train trip Jacob and I were planning to take. Here’s the story about it. Friday night, Jacob was super excited. He was running around the house, talking about trains. I had him pack his own backpack with toys this time, which were — you guessed it — trains. Plus train [...]
Jacob & Dad & Trains
January 14th, 2011, 3 Comments
Back in July, our family took a train trip from Kansas to New York for Debconf10. And then in September, we went to Indiana. The only train service from here leaves at about 3AM in both directions. So starting about November, Jacob started asking me, “Dad, will you wake me up in the middle of [...]
Christmas Gatherings, a Piano, and a Pickup
December 27th, 2010, 4 Comments
Perhaps I am not very imaginative. Or perhaps insufficiently adventurous. But when I woke up today, a day that would actually get a little bit above freezing, I didn’t have a thought of riding without a coat in the bed of a pickup. Nor did I expect to be involved with moving a piano. I [...]
Jacob: 4 Years Old, and Troubleshooting PCs
December 12th, 2010, 2 Comments
Back in April, I wrote about Jacob and I building his first computer together and how it’s running just the Linux command-line interface — no graphics at all. And he loves it. Well, as is often the case with him, his interest in various things waxes and wanes over time. He hadn’t spent much time [...]
A Switchbox and a Very Happy 4-Year-Old
December 6th, 2010, 18 Comments
This all started this summer. My parents have some dimmer switches in their house, which Jacob loves. He also enjoyed turning their lights on an off rapidly to make them flash. Since we have CFLs almost exclusively, we have no dimmer switches, and we don’t permit making the lights flash. (This hurts the lifespan of [...]
