I was speaking to a co-worker this morning and I came up with what I think is good advice:
"Don’t let little irritations turn into big problems in your marriage, resolve them while they are little. Divorce is hell."
This comes under the heading of "Experience is knowing a lot of things you shouldn't do again." Oh yeah, that's the point of this blog, isn't it?
So many of our problems started out many years ago as little tiny irritations or annoyances, and I let them slide because "it wasn't worth the battle". Well, I shouldn't have, because as time went on they became bigger irritations, and then mutated into problems that have become insurmountable obstacles.
People ask me "when did your problems start?" And, over the last month I have come up with various answers: 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years ago. Really, after a lot of introspection, I believe that they started soon after we got married, if not before, because we both were willing to "let things slide". Both of us dislike confrontation and avoid it whenever possible.
Many times, avoiding confrontation is a Very Good Thing. But, there are times when it becomes necessary, and I am beginning to believe that facing confrontation in a marriage from the beginning is a Very Good Thing.
If I could do it over again I'd have fought the battle back then. Or at least started looking for a solution or a compromise. Individually, in the beginning, all of them could have been solved and we wouldn't be in this situation now.
It's kinda like a cancer. If you catch it soon enough it can usually be solved with some kind of treatment; minor surgery or medication or radiation. But if you ignore it long enough then amputation and/or death will result.
Divorce is hell.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
iPhone
The iPhone takes a giant step closer to being the phone I need. Not sure where this came from, it was emailed me by a colleague who knows I've been researching iPhone useability:
When connected, an iPhone shows a blue "Internet tethering" status bar below the clock to remind the owner that the tethering link is still active and consuming data, much as existing iPhone firmware will display a green bar to indicate an ongoing phone call.
The exposed feature, noticed by MacRumors on Wednesday, confirms remarks by senior iPhone software VP Scott Forstall that tethering is present in iPhone 3.0 itself but would depend on commercial and technical support from individual cellphone carriers before it could become a simple option for subscribers.
At this stage, it's not possible to tell which if any carriers might already be enabled for iPhone tethering, though only AT&T has set out plans for the data modem link to become an option sometime in the future. Some providers, like Rogers Wireless in Canada, already factor tethering into their plans for most smartphones and wouldn't have any pricing limitations as a result.
Developer shows working iPhone 3.0 tethering over USB
Published: 06:30 PM EST
Confirming what Apple had hinted at in its iPhone 3.0 presentation, a developer has successfully, if unintentionally, enabled data tethering on the new iPhone firmware.
Irish programmer Steve Troughton discovered the phone-as-modem feature's presence in the beta by accident earlier on Wednesday after uploading a custom Carrier Settings file to overwrite the defaults for O2, his local provider.
While understandably spotty due to its beta state -- the phone initially hard-locked on making the computer connection -- tethering has successfully given Troughton's Mac 3G data access over USB as though it were another network adapter. The feature is exposed in the iPhone's network settings as a simple slider and describes the feature as only requiring a USB connection or a Bluetooth pairing, though the latter hasn't yet been tested.When connected, an iPhone shows a blue "Internet tethering" status bar below the clock to remind the owner that the tethering link is still active and consuming data, much as existing iPhone firmware will display a green bar to indicate an ongoing phone call.
The exposed feature, noticed by MacRumors on Wednesday, confirms remarks by senior iPhone software VP Scott Forstall that tethering is present in iPhone 3.0 itself but would depend on commercial and technical support from individual cellphone carriers before it could become a simple option for subscribers.
At this stage, it's not possible to tell which if any carriers might already be enabled for iPhone tethering, though only AT&T has set out plans for the data modem link to become an option sometime in the future. Some providers, like Rogers Wireless in Canada, already factor tethering into their plans for most smartphones and wouldn't have any pricing limitations as a result.
One Sentence
Found an interesting website; http://www.onesentence.org. Reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway's short story "For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn."; the website showcases original one sentence short stories. Some are quite illuminating. A recent post I enjoyed: "Promptly after arriving at college and trying to clean up after my roommates, I phoned my mom and apologized for 18 years of not helping tidy the kitchen more." Or, how about "My 8-year-old sister proudly declared that she knows that "WTF" means "Wow, That's Funny" and has been using it all over the internet."
Monday, March 9, 2009
Gran Torino
Went to see Gran Torino yesterday. Not at all what I expected, but an incredible movie. It was emotionally and visually riveting, not a dull moment or bad scene. The ending, while not totally unexpected, was unusual and moving.
What a story.
What a story.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Outpost Bar & Grill
Went to the Outpost Bar & Grill in Deer River, MN Friday night. I've kinda wanted to go there since they opened. It's a big log building and looks nice from the outside. Haven't heard a lot about it, either good or bad. So finally the opportunity presented itself (Friday the 13th).
Got there right about 6 PM. Maybe 15-20 people sitting at the tables, which were all bunched up to one side. Apparently, a band was supposed to play later, so they squished all the tables into one half the room. Another 4 or 5 people were sitting at the bar. One bartender and two waitresses appeared to be working. We sat down. Took nearly 10 minutes before a waitress appeared with menus and asked if we wanted drinks. She left after taking about half our drink order and none of our hors d'oeuvres orders. 15 minutes later she reappeared with the half drink order. and wanted to take our order, which we gave her, along with the rest of our drinks and our appetizers. 25 minutes later the dinner and appetizers and drinks showed up, missing about half the salads. After the rest of the meal showed up we saw the waitress one more time when she dropped off the bill.
I had a 1/2 lb burger. It was OK, but would have been better hot. I didn't have soup or salad, but those that had the soup (potato-ham) took one taste and set it aside. My fries were cold. They don't serve Coca-Cola, so I had a Dr. Pepper, which was very much watered.
The ambiance was OK, a bit noisy for my taste, although not as bad as Applebee's. The interior is decorated in an outdoorsy style, with moose and deer and elk and walleye and muskie and pike mounts all over (don't know if real or fake). The tables and chairs were made of actual varnished slabs of wood, no Formica here. The chairs were rather uncomfortable; the seat bottoms had been finished flat and there were no cushions. I suppose since it's a bar they plan on the patrons getting numb enough not to care. The "outhouses" were labeled "Does" and "Bucks".
If they served Coca-Cola it might have qualified as an OK bar, but they are a Pepsi house. We didn't leave a tip, and I'm not planning on returning. A very disappointing evening.
Got there right about 6 PM. Maybe 15-20 people sitting at the tables, which were all bunched up to one side. Apparently, a band was supposed to play later, so they squished all the tables into one half the room. Another 4 or 5 people were sitting at the bar. One bartender and two waitresses appeared to be working. We sat down. Took nearly 10 minutes before a waitress appeared with menus and asked if we wanted drinks. She left after taking about half our drink order and none of our hors d'oeuvres orders. 15 minutes later she reappeared with the half drink order. and wanted to take our order, which we gave her, along with the rest of our drinks and our appetizers. 25 minutes later the dinner and appetizers and drinks showed up, missing about half the salads. After the rest of the meal showed up we saw the waitress one more time when she dropped off the bill.
I had a 1/2 lb burger. It was OK, but would have been better hot. I didn't have soup or salad, but those that had the soup (potato-ham) took one taste and set it aside. My fries were cold. They don't serve Coca-Cola, so I had a Dr. Pepper, which was very much watered.
The ambiance was OK, a bit noisy for my taste, although not as bad as Applebee's. The interior is decorated in an outdoorsy style, with moose and deer and elk and walleye and muskie and pike mounts all over (don't know if real or fake). The tables and chairs were made of actual varnished slabs of wood, no Formica here. The chairs were rather uncomfortable; the seat bottoms had been finished flat and there were no cushions. I suppose since it's a bar they plan on the patrons getting numb enough not to care. The "outhouses" were labeled "Does" and "Bucks".
If they served Coca-Cola it might have qualified as an OK bar, but they are a Pepsi house. We didn't leave a tip, and I'm not planning on returning. A very disappointing evening.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Museum Trip
Had a fun weekend learning some history and science around the Twin Cities.
We went down Friday and along the way stopped by the AWAM museum (http://www.americanwings.org/). The website said they would be open "First Saturday after New Years’ thru mid-May Friday & Saturday - 10:00am - 4:00pm", but when we arrived it was rather obvious that they were closed for the winter. I was rather disappointed. I once had a logbook of some of the first trial flights of the OV-10A, given to me by one of the pilots from the test program (I believe it was his personal logbook, rather than an official one) and had been looking forward to learning more about the aircraft. No such luck.
After staying the night in a hotel (more on that later) we visited the Minnesota Transportation Museum's (http://www.mtmuseum.org/) Jackson Street Roundhouse. It's amazing what the group of volunteers has been doing here. The Roundhouse is full of restoration projects actively being worked on, with more in the yard awaiting time and space. They are restoring a steam engine from the ground up, have a train that runs out of Osceola during the summer, and we took a short caboose ride in the yard there. They also have several ancient pullman cars that visitors can walk thru, really cool.
Just by chance, I think we caught the last day of an incredible exhibit, a huge LEGO train set.
After spending 3 hours at the Jackson Street Roundhouse, we traveled about 2 miles down the road to the Science Museum of Minnesota (http://www.smm.org/). After spending half an hour puzzling out the most efficient way to buy tickets we headed in to see the dinosaurs. Fascinating museum. Everything is very hands on. For example, want to see how waves act as the ocean and beach depth change? Have a seat at the controls of the wave machine and you can change the shoreline slope, change the speed of the wave action, change the length of the waves.
We also went to a showing of the Omni film "Grand Canyon", which is severely mis-labeled. We had expected to see stunning vistas of the walls of the Grand Canyon, aerial shots and so on. Instead, the film should have been entitled "White-water rafting thru the Grand Canyon, with extensive commentary about how Man has destroyed the ecosystem". All in all, a very disappointing film. It was technically challenging, I'd love to know how some of the photography was accomplished, and I'd like to make the trip someday, but NOT what was expected. And, for my first Omni film, not a good way to sell me on the advantages. I had a very sore neck from trying to look up and behind me the entire time, and there was nothing there that couldn't have been shown just as well on a flat screen .
We spent about 6 hours in the museum, and if we had been able to we could have easily spent that much more time, but everyone was exhausted.
Sunday morning we headed for the Mall of America (http://www.mallofamerica.com) What an experience. We walked across the Nickelodeon Universe to the LEGO store, with plans to come back and do a few rides. After an hour spent oohing and ahhing at the LEGO displays, we headed down to the Underwater Adventures Aquarium. What a fascinating tour! Everything from turtles, Koi, alligators, salmon to sharks and an octopus. Really neat. By the time we got out it was after 3PM. I took lots of pictures, but the low lighting (it IS underwater, after all) and moving animals made decent photography difficult.
We had been hoping to be home by 4PM, but 7PM was the reality. A really fun trip. I took about twice as many photos as I've posted, and others took photos also that I am going to try to get copies of to add to the gallery later.
Oh yeah, the hotel. We stayed at the Prime Rate Motel in Burnsville, found a VERY GOOD price on it thru Priceline.com. Two of my criteria were free wireless internet and a pool. The wireless internet worked great. When we arrived on Friday about 5 PM we were told the pool was closed for maintenance but would be open about 7. OK, so we went and got dinner. About 8 we headed for the pool and found it still closed and the whirlpool was filled to nearly double the posted capacity. We were told the pool would be opening Saturday night. So, when we returned Saturday from the museum, we found a cold (but open!) pool and both it and the whirlpool were heavily over-chlorinated. I lasted about 15 minutes.
The rooms were very small. The beds were extremely hard. The nightlife was loud. It was very good to be back in my waterbed last night.
We went down Friday and along the way stopped by the AWAM museum (http://www.americanwings.org/). The website said they would be open "First Saturday after New Years’ thru mid-May Friday & Saturday - 10:00am - 4:00pm", but when we arrived it was rather obvious that they were closed for the winter. I was rather disappointed. I once had a logbook of some of the first trial flights of the OV-10A, given to me by one of the pilots from the test program (I believe it was his personal logbook, rather than an official one) and had been looking forward to learning more about the aircraft. No such luck.
After staying the night in a hotel (more on that later) we visited the Minnesota Transportation Museum's (http://www.mtmuseum.org/) Jackson Street Roundhouse. It's amazing what the group of volunteers has been doing here. The Roundhouse is full of restoration projects actively being worked on, with more in the yard awaiting time and space. They are restoring a steam engine from the ground up, have a train that runs out of Osceola during the summer, and we took a short caboose ride in the yard there. They also have several ancient pullman cars that visitors can walk thru, really cool.
Just by chance, I think we caught the last day of an incredible exhibit, a huge LEGO train set.
After spending 3 hours at the Jackson Street Roundhouse, we traveled about 2 miles down the road to the Science Museum of Minnesota (http://www.smm.org/). After spending half an hour puzzling out the most efficient way to buy tickets we headed in to see the dinosaurs. Fascinating museum. Everything is very hands on. For example, want to see how waves act as the ocean and beach depth change? Have a seat at the controls of the wave machine and you can change the shoreline slope, change the speed of the wave action, change the length of the waves.
We also went to a showing of the Omni film "Grand Canyon", which is severely mis-labeled. We had expected to see stunning vistas of the walls of the Grand Canyon, aerial shots and so on. Instead, the film should have been entitled "White-water rafting thru the Grand Canyon, with extensive commentary about how Man has destroyed the ecosystem". All in all, a very disappointing film. It was technically challenging, I'd love to know how some of the photography was accomplished, and I'd like to make the trip someday, but NOT what was expected. And, for my first Omni film, not a good way to sell me on the advantages. I had a very sore neck from trying to look up and behind me the entire time, and there was nothing there that couldn't have been shown just as well on a flat screen .
We spent about 6 hours in the museum, and if we had been able to we could have easily spent that much more time, but everyone was exhausted.
Sunday morning we headed for the Mall of America (http://www.mallofamerica.com) What an experience. We walked across the Nickelodeon Universe to the LEGO store, with plans to come back and do a few rides. After an hour spent oohing and ahhing at the LEGO displays, we headed down to the Underwater Adventures Aquarium. What a fascinating tour! Everything from turtles, Koi, alligators, salmon to sharks and an octopus. Really neat. By the time we got out it was after 3PM. I took lots of pictures, but the low lighting (it IS underwater, after all) and moving animals made decent photography difficult.
We had been hoping to be home by 4PM, but 7PM was the reality. A really fun trip. I took about twice as many photos as I've posted, and others took photos also that I am going to try to get copies of to add to the gallery later.
Oh yeah, the hotel. We stayed at the Prime Rate Motel in Burnsville, found a VERY GOOD price on it thru Priceline.com. Two of my criteria were free wireless internet and a pool. The wireless internet worked great. When we arrived on Friday about 5 PM we were told the pool was closed for maintenance but would be open about 7. OK, so we went and got dinner. About 8 we headed for the pool and found it still closed and the whirlpool was filled to nearly double the posted capacity. We were told the pool would be opening Saturday night. So, when we returned Saturday from the museum, we found a cold (but open!) pool and both it and the whirlpool were heavily over-chlorinated. I lasted about 15 minutes.
The rooms were very small. The beds were extremely hard. The nightlife was loud. It was very good to be back in my waterbed last night.
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