August 18, 2006: Dad Visits New Jersey

My plan was to sleep until 4:30 but Oreo had other plans. He got me up at 3:00 to take him outside and by that point I was awake enough that it really didn’t make any sense for me to be going back to sleep so I went ahead and got out of bed. I showered and got ready for work and had enough time to do some much needed web site work that has been evading getting onto my schedule for a very long time.

I left for the office a little before 6:00. Hard to believe that I was up for three hours by that time! It is going to be a long day.

Today the TSA finally made the bold move to ban gel filled bras from carry on luggage. No more falsies fooling American passengers! I suppose that this will help keep terrorists from distracting security workers with oversized breasts (distracting them with not distracting guards with – oh you get the point.) Now terrorists wanted that extra “oomph” will have to either settle for toilet paper or go all out for surgery. We will show them!

Speaking of terrorists, a federal judge finally stepped in and said that President Bush’s wiretapping without a warrant was unconstitutional. It is about time. That provision was put into the constitution (or wherever it is) specifically to keep renegade government figures from spreading TERROR inside of the United States. I wonder if Bush’s acting as a terrorist is ironic or coincidental (this is not a question of my understanding of the English language but a humorous question of ethics that will only be funny to those of you who actually understand the difference between irony and coincidence.)

I am on a role today. And since I am feeling so esoteric I have decided to provide you with some interesting reading material: The Romance of Proctology. No, really.

For lunch I went with a coworker over to an Indian restaurant just around the corner from the office. I had no idea that there was an Indian restaurant there. The food was really good and the place was really busy. We actually had to wait for about ten minutes to be seated.

After lunch I was dead tired. I had been up for almost twelve hours and finally getting solid food into my stomach was a bit much for my system and I just wanted to fall asleep. It was all that I could do to stay awake.

Dad arrived in North Brunswick at a quarter after four in the afternoon. Pretty much right on schedule as far as I can tell. He checked in to the hotel and took a nap. I wish that I could take a nap.

Dominica got an interview set up for Monday afternoon. This only about her third interview since she has been job hunting down here in New Jersey. It is a contract position just going through the end of the year which would be really nice so we are really hopeful.

My evening deployment officially started at 5:00 but I wasn’t scheduled to be doing anything in particular for an hour at the very least so I had some time to myself to relax and build my energy back up. I put in some serious reading time pounding on Joel Spolsky’s “The Best Software Writing I” which is a collection of some of the best articles written on software from around 2003 – 2004, more or less. It is a really good collection. Well worth the time to read.

The plan is that I will get to leave work around seven or so. Probably really close to that time. Then I will drive to North Brunswick and meet dad and Dominica for dinner at the Omega Diner. I don’t know if there are any plans beyond that or not. My plan is to post the update before I leave the office since I know that there will be no chance of me doing that later tonight and probably not this weekend.

If you are interested in learning HTML, XHTML and CSS for web design I have long recommended the classic Peachpit Press book by Elizabeth Castro. While she and I part ways on our belief as to the importance of strictly using full XML compliant, true XHTML for all web design (she leans towards sloppy HTML and I am a strict XHTML adherent with a mean metal ruler looking for the fingers of unwary web designers) I find that her text is a great introduction to the technical aspects of web design using its core, non-programatic technologies. I was first introduced to her with the fourth edition of her book and was very impressed with the fifth edition which I have recommended to many would-be web designers over the years and now after four more years the sixth edition of her book has released. I don’t have a copy of the sixth edition yet myself but I definitely plan on getting one for my library.

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