Captions

Although my captions are probably not as much fun as Andy's, they sure do look better. Thought I would use this as my opportunity to shout out to Flagrant Disregard and their wonderful Flickr Toys. Can lead to lots of enjoyment between this and the motivational posters. Plus plenty of other tools.

A Quieter Household, maybe

Well, I drove my parents to the airport this afternoon. It was great having them out. Now we just need to find a way for Michelle's parents to get a chance to meet Miranda and we will be doing just fine. While they were here, we got a chance to check out he Seattle Aquarium, Pike Place Market, Snoqualmie Falls, and also the Olympic Peninsula. So I think they got to see a good set of stuff. Plus there is always more to see next time they have a visit. But we made sure they had some time with Miranda and got to do the family thing.

So here is to time with family. Something that is always fun.

Net Neutrality

Saw in the news the other day that our fearless leaders have made the first step toward net neutrality. The real problem though is that they don't own "these roads". At some point, the net is going to be a part of the public infrastructure (similar to phones?) just like our roadway system. But until then, the internet and the means to connect to it are all private. I say let the ISPs try to charge companies to display content across. With that you will see the first decline in internet usage since its inception.

If MCI/Worldcomm tried to charge companies $0.0002 for ever meg of transfer, and the Amazon's, Google's, Microsoft's, etc decided not to pay it, I think consumers would rebel. But the providers are trying to milk the cow from two ends. (What a horrible analogy)

The phone system is private, but regulated and, in my opinion, nothing but trouble. Stupid little fees, horrible support, but it is ubiquitous. The net connections are already on their way to that same sorts of problems. What is worse, is that there is no analogy to websites in a phone world. Both sides of a "conversation" pay for that connection. In the case of the web, sites pay for both sides of the connection, but I guess that isn't good enough. We are headed straight to ATM connection fee hell in a messy handbasket.

Get the gov out and let's see what falls out from consumer choices. Maybe I am just too curious.

Backup solutions

Recently I decided it was time to do another backup of my data. It had been about a year (ug, I know) and I had moved all my music and pictures to be centrally located and partially organized. I know that many of my pictures have made it to flickr and I have my music hosted on my website, but I still had a ton of photos and the raw tracks of music on my computer not backed up. On top of that, there are plays I have written and other documents (some financial) that I have as well that could use to be backed up. So I ran a quick backup to dvd which got all my media. I find this method just not very efficient and generally to a pain in the butt. I am also not a huge fan of tape backups or cd backups or any media centered backups. It only protects you from physical failure of a hard drive and not from theft, fire, or flood.

I guess this feeling of insecurity came when I started looking at Amazon's S3 data service. It made me drool with the possibility of distributed, redundant, remote storage. But I have seen some draw backs, at least for me. I am not comfortable with the pricing model as I am already dishing out monthly bills for internet and for my current hosting solutions, I now add a data storage service to that mix (added with flickr and some other misc recurrent internet fees). Plus their means of holding data is not all that optimum for me. I know they say that the data is private to individual by default, but it just feels unsafe to me. I wouldn't mind with some of my data, but for financial oriented stuff... uggh!

So here is what I want:

• Distributed (more than one data facility)
• Redundant (kinda like putting this down in the first place)
• Accessible via ftp, https, web service, etc
• Come with software for aiding of backup
• Priced at $0.001/meg storage per month and that includes bandwidth for private use
• Some other pricing plan for commercial use

So does this sound like a good idea? I mean, I wouldn't want to lose stuff like this.

Heat wave

First off I didn't expect Washington to get so hot so early in the year. And with that heat, unfortunately, Miranda got heat rash and was definitely not happy. That irritation lead to long hours of crying and little we could do other than try to dress her appropriately and get some fans going. So that today's heat wave left us a little more prepared and we were able to keep her heat rash from spreading too much.

For those keeping note, we easily hit 85 degrees yesterday and 80 degrees today.

Some other notes, put together a short dvd for Michelle's family of the video clips that we have so far. I think it came out well but I really should finish testing it before bed and it will be leaving with Cathy tomorrow. Also I have been slowly sending out announcements. I unfortunately didn't keep a list so I don't know who I sent to and who I have not. Silly me.

Also played a bit with a program that was pointed out to me by Jay called autostitch. I really need to grab more photos so that I can play more but I did get a chance to put together the pictures from my wife's trip to snoqualmie falls.

Attempt at a family photo

We decided to abuse our familial privledges by having Michelle's sister, Cathy, get us a family like picture. Now to wait for Andy's commentary.

More from the Northwest

Well, Miranda is doing fine. I am starting to understand her feeding habits. Most of the time she is pretty even with times and amounts, but occasional the amounts will spike and the times will fluctuate. I can only attribute it to growth spurts, but to be honest, I don't really know.

Kinda nice that I have been able to see a few smiles from her, but lord forbid I have a camera anywhere near me during those moments. I am sure that I will get the opportunity eventually. And wow can she fill a diaper.

From an animal note, Tigger seems pretty well adjusted to her, but now demands more attnetion. Normally this cat is very standoffish, but he has even sat in my lap of late which is super weird for him. He even follows me through the house. I think he is afraid that we may leave and come home with another wailing child. As for the fish, the crappy ones to start the cycling are doing just fine. I don't think they even notice the baby. However we have a decent algae growth, so I will pick up some form of algae eater over the weekend and decided if that tank will be Rainbow fish, or african cichlids. Once I install the new faucet for the basement sink, I will drain and refill the 110 for it's future of fish holding.

Here is one of my favorite recent pics!