Wednesday, December 02, 2009

1. Introduction

Jennifer is away for the week and has me maintaining the blog. So here I am; maintaining.

2. Prerequisites

I don't know how you do things in Blog-o-land, so how about I just bring my own world into your world?

3. Special Notes

You will not find a "funny" theme in my post, nor witty observations about the world. I am strictly here to inform you, the reader, about how my day went. If you do not like my posts then feel free to say so. If this sounds like something I would publish at work, well, you have your answer. I have been publishing technical documents since I arrived in Ottawa so do not expect ironic essays that explains something profound about something that I learned today. You will not learn anything profound. Except that Radio Shack stinks... but we will get to that later. And if you are surprised then I am sorry. Radio Shack stinks.

4. Description

First, Finn and I went to "Toddler Time" at the library. We could not find one book, the one about the "Edmontonosaurous", so we had to go without it. At the library group, we sang songs and sat on small primary colored mats. Finn sat mostly on me. When it was near the end, Finn finally got into the groove of things and was dancing, singing, and clapping. It is fun watching this shy little boy come out of his shell, even if it is painfully slow sometimes.

At craft time we had to decorate mitts. Finn kept putting stickers on his hand. It started to annoy me, but, I let Finn do it anyways. When it was time to go, Finn quickly took the stickers off of his hands and put them on the mitts. It was almost like he was trying the stickers on himself before he put them on his art project. Cute. (Figure 1 source - Image with digital scanner)

Figure 1 - Decorated Mitts

All morning, though, I kept telling Finn that we were going to get books. But when Toddler Time was over Finn did not want to look for books at the library. He wanted to look for books in the garbage. I can explain. For the past couple weeks I have been throwing garbage in dumpsters behind our house. The dumpsters are for an elementary school and, for the past few weeks, they have been throwing out old books in the dumpsters that Finn and I have reclaimed. Today there were no books in the dumpsters, nor did we get any books from the library. I guess we will keep searching for the book about the "Edmontonosaurous." See Figure 2.


Figure 2 - Finn's Book Source

Next for the day was to winterize the house. Each week I try to do a little bit so that when the snow finally comes I will not be in a panic, nor will I have to do it all at once. Yesterday, Finn and I organized the garage enough to put he car in it. Today, Finn and I put a tarp over our patio chairs in the back yard. Figure 3 and 4 illustrate the process from Finn's point of view.

Figure 3 - Winterizing the Patio Furniture

Figure 4 - Finn Is Helping

After naps, snacks, and computer fixing, Finn and I went to the mall near our house. Finn went to see Santa. Finn does not like many things new and he is fairly shy with most new people he meets. Apparently, there is no exception to Santa. Well, first there was an Oriental lady who wanted us to use "Purell". I told her that I did not "believe" in Purell so would not allow her to give it to my son. I told her that if she wanted us to go to the washroom and wash our hands with soap and water we would, but we would not use Purell.

She won the argument. We had to use Purell if we wanted to get near Santa. (If I had my own blog I would rant about the excessive use of Purell and some conspiracy linked to it... but this is not my blog.)

Next up were trains. First there was a "Fantasy Island" (I think they called it) and it was filled with model trains. There was even a Thomas the Train. This "Island" was filled with all these decorative homes and town buildings people love to bring out at Christmas time, my grandparents included. It was neat to see, but Finn needed a second look before he started to enjoy it. The first time he said he was scared and we had to leave.

The main reason to go to the mall was to play with the Thomas the Train set a store has on display. Yes, Finn and I play with toys on display at the store. What? Do you think we are made of money? We can't afford:
1) A Thomas the Train set, and
2) A good digital camera.
Figure 5 illustrates the two things I cannot afford.

Figure 5 - Toyless In A Toy Store
It is incredible how happy Finn is when he plays with the train set at the toy store. See Figure 6 to get an idea of Finn's current train set that he plays with at home.

Figure 6 - The End Of Finn's Day

As you can see from Figure 6, Finn needs a better train set for Christmas, and Dylan needs a better digital camera.

5. Other activities

So that was Finn's and my first full day without Jenn and Rosemary. What was not illustrated are:
  • I ran cable through the basement ceiling so that Finn and Rosemary can watch movies on the TV that are played on the computer. Finn was very helpful getting tools and eating lollipops.
  • Finn was very helpful but afraid of the soldering iron when I was making the TV cables. (The soldering iron did not get hot enough to melt the solder fast enough so the process took too long and Finn got scared. Don't worry Finn, cold solder joints are scary.)
  • In cleaning out the garage Finn and I took back $7.90 worth of beer bottles to deposit. I felt good that I was teaching Finn that recycling and taking beer bottles for your deposit is good because it helps the environment and puts money back in your pocket. I feel bad because I showed Finn that any gain you do for the environment comes from drinking. That, and I know exactly what I got back from the deposit, but I don't know how much I spent tonight on beer. Shhh. Don't tell Jenn.

6. Conclusion

Being a single dad won't be so bad if I didn't have to go back to work next Wednesday. Until then, I will sleep in late, drink coffee all day, not clean anything until the last hour Jenn comes home and say I was too busy making sure Finn didn't stick a knife in his eye or something like that.

Oh yes, and Radio Shack does stink. I went there looking for cable connectors and power switches so I can do some wizardry with:
a) The computer video/audio; and
b) A garage door opener for the car but built into the dashboard console. (See Figure 7)

Figure 7 - Built In Garage Door Opener With Master Switch

(Figure 7 is an illustration using MS Paint after I have had 4 beers trying to "maintain" this blog. Please do not e-mail me that the switch positions are backwards. If you are smart enough to notice that, you are smart enough to figure it out for yourself.)

Finn and I went to look for switches at Radio Shack but they were $4.99-$6.99 for ONE switch. You can get electronic parts from digikey that you can AND cannot get from Radio Shack. I've seen that you can get close to two dozen parts from digikey for the price of one at Radio Shack. So if you want something ordered in terms of electronics and want to build something but don't know how or don't know where to get the parts, just let me know and I will try to help. Also, check out Mouser. I haven't ordered from them yet but I've seen a lot of specialty items that you cannot get on digikey.

7. Summary

N/A

8. Authorization

Authorized by D.L. in lieu of J.L. Contact D.L. for questions, comments, or complaints. I'm going to get a beer.

4 comments:

Ada Saab said...

Oh Wow, Dylan.

This was excellent.
We have a plethora of Thomas the Train. We are saving them for our children's inheritance - well, except for the lead paint ones. Those have been licked clean.

Unknown said...

that was right on Dylan.I loved it

Jenn said...

I love you, Dylan, and not just for your blog-funniness. You can manage my site any day, baby.

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