Tue May 14 2013 10:04 Beautiful Soup 4.2.0: My work on RESTful Web APIs is pretty much done, so I went through the Beautiful Soup bug tracker and fixed everything I could. The result is a new, stoner-iffic release of Beautiful Soup.

Here are the release notes. The main new features are a much more capable CSS selector engine, and a diagnostics module that should help with tech support.

Wed May 01 2013 14:55 Story Bundle: Constellation Games is featured in the current video game-themed StoryBundle. It's a pay-what-you-want, like the Humble Indie Bundle. This means that if you're the ultimate cheapskate, you can get my book and six others for the Steam-sale-level price of three bucks. Pay ten bucks, and you also get three bonus books, including Jordan Mechner's "The Making of Prince of Persia and a Ralph Baer memoir which--just guessing here--is probably enjoyably cranky.

And for people who discover Constellation Games based on this bundle, this is my occasional notification that there are tons of free extras: four bonus stories, in-character Twitter feeds, and an episode guide with commentary.

Side note: the bundle was assembled by Simon Carless, who is the reason I wrote Constellation Games in the first place.

(1) Wed May 01 2013 10:59 April Film Roundup: Another month, another few movies. RESTful Web APIs is almost done, but not quite, so once again there's not a whole lot here. The theme of this month is "really loving a movie, seeing a different movie on that basis, and being very disappointed."

• The Face You Deserve (2004): This movie caused a rare Siskel and Ebert-type rift between me and Sumana. I thought the first part of the movie was boring, but that it picked up once it turned into a surreal fairy tale. Sumana thought the first part showed promise and hated the Michel Gondry-esque manchildren in the fairy tale part. I don't recommend this movie, either, but I was engaged for the fairy tale.
• The General (1926): This is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's so well put together. The movie is basically two chase scenes, and each chase scene is made entirely of inventive Jackie Chan-style action gags. People in the theater were cheering, which I've never experienced before, and laughing to an extent not heard since The Whole Town's Talking. The General has all the good things Chaplin put into his films, but none of the treacly sentimentality. The one bit of sentimentality is deflated by its co-occurance with the one bit of corny dated-looking special effects.

  No surprise, then, that this was Keaton's Ishtar: a way-too-expensive flop that cost him his creative control. You can Watch The General on the Internet Archive, but as always with silent film the problem is finding an appropriate soundtrack. We heard an amazing live soundtrack performed by Viola Dana, and they have a CD available, but the CD only has "selections". So maybe try Stravinsky's "Chamber Works", as suggested by a comment on this page? I bet some peppy chiptunes would also work.

• Die Hard (1988): Not one of the best movies I've ever seen. It deserves a lot of credit as the pinnacle of the 80s action movie, but at this point I've seen some action movies from the 70s, and it feels like movie execs saw Die Hard and said "well, we found it!" and the genre never advanced again. Not really Die Hard's fault, but it's hard not to be bitter.

  For improvisational comedy-violence, The General is better. Not just my idiosyncratic opinion! The General's IMDB rating is 8.4, versus Die Hard's 8.3, and at the high end of the distribution, 0.1 IMDB star is worth a lot.

• Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928): A big disappointment after The General. Buster Keaton has lost his creative control, and it shows. The film lacks a through-line (unlike The General, which was literally on rails), and promises a "snobs vs. slobs" rivalry that never gets going. Partially redeemed by great stunts. This, too, can be seen on the Internet Archive.
• Tai Chi Zero (2012): Zany anti-colonialist steampunk kung fu movie that annotates events with video game-style infographics and otherwise breaks the fourth wall all the time. It's kind of China's Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, and judging from online reviews it's just as divisive. We liked it a lot. (I also liked Scott Pilgrim.) It's got big problems, notably the acting, which is very stiff. But most of the actors were chosen for their martial arts ability, and martial arts are happening about seventy percent of the time. The only time the fourth-wall-breaking got out of control was a scene at the beginning of the third act, which blends together "we're planning this heist" shots and hypothetical "this is what it will look like when you carry out the heist" shots, and then starts mixing in "this is how the heist actually went down" shots! It took about thirty seconds before I realized that I was now watching the actual heist.

  Sometimes the problems made me enjoy the movie more! The awkward English scenes gave me an experience similar to what I imagine a Mandarin speaker feels watching a Mandarin scene in an American movie. There's a steampunk tank with an English instruction manual, which was supposedly written by Brits but which reads exactly like the instruction manuals that come with Chinese-manufactured kitchen appliances. I thought the villain was a more complex character than he actually was, because I assumed that if everyone derides a character as a wimp, that makes him the underdog and you're supposed to have some sympathy for him. But no, apparently not in this movie.

  Oh, and you know how they say "there ought to be a law?" Well, the special effects supervisor for Tai Chi Zero is credited as "A Law". So now there is A Law!

  But I gotta tell you that this is not a standalone movie. It could have been, but about three minutes from the end it turns into The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, introduces a whole bunch of new characters, sets up a sequel and leaves you hanging.

• Tai Chi Hero (2012): Fortunately, the sequel is playing in Times Square right now, so we went and saw it the next day. Aaaand... we were very disappointed. If you liked all the steampunk and fourth-wall-breaking from the first movie, then too bad, because there's no steampunk until the second act and no fourth-wall-breaking until the third. (The steampunk, when it finally happens, is still great.) On the other hand, if you hated all that nerd shit from the first movie, you'll love the by-the-numbers soap opera they replaced it with.

  On top of everything else, the title of this movie retroactively makes the title of the previous movie dumb. I can't believe they got Peter Stormare to... wait, he was in Armageddon, never mind.

Sat Apr 27 2013 17:08 Board Game Dadaist Improvements: I've finally relented to Adam's demands and made some improvements to the Board Game Dadaist RSS feed. He broke his kneecap recently and I figured this would be a good way to cheer him up. Every game that shows up in the feed now has a permalink (here's "Plue"), and that page has a very basic link for posting your find to Twitter.

Thu Apr 18 2013 13:05 In Search of the Beautiful Soup Double-Dippers: Recently I noticed that certain IPs were using distribute or setuptools to download the Beautiful Soup tarball multiple times in a row. For one thing, I'm not sure why distribute and setuptools are downloading Beautiful Soup from crummy.com instead of using PyPI, especially since PyPI registers almost 150k downloads of the latest BS4--why are some people using PyPI and not others?

If anyone knows how to convince everyone to use PyPI, I'd appreciate the knowledge. But it's not a big deal right now, and it gives me some visibility into how people are using Beautiful Soup. Visibility which I will share with you.

Yesterday, the 17th, the Beautiful Soup 4.1.3 tarball was downloaded 2223 times. It is by far the most popular thing on crummy.com. The second most popular thing is the Beautiful Soup 3.2.1 tarball, which was downloaded 381 times. The vast majority of the downloads were from installation scripts: distribute or setuptools.

1516 distinct IP addresses were responsible for the 2223 downloads of 4.1.3. I wrote a script to find out how many IP addresses downloaded Beautiful Soup more than once. The results:

Downloads from a single IP	Number of times this happened
55	1
35	1
15	1
13	1
11	1
5	2
4	12
3	43
2	453
1	1001

Naturally my attention was drawn to the outliers at the top of the table. I investigated them individually. The IP address responsible for 55 downloads is a software company of the sort that might be deploying to a bunch of computers behind a proxy. The 35 is an individual on a cable modem who, judging from their other traces on the Internet, is deploying to a bunch of computers using Puppet. The 15, the 13, and the 11 are all from Travis CI, a continuous integration service.

One of the two 5s was an Amazon EC2 instance. Five of the twelve 4s were Amazon EC2 instances. Thirty-seven of the forty-three 3s were Amazon EC2 instances. And 395 of the 453 double-dippers were Amazon EC2 instances. Something's clearly going on with EC2. (There was also one download from within Amazon corporate, among other BigCo downloaders.)

I hypothesized that the overall majority of duplicate requests are from Amazon EC2 instances being wiped and redeployed. To test this hypothesis I went through all the double-dippers and calculated the time between the first request and the second. My results are in this scatter plot. Each point on the plot represents an IP address that downloaded Beautiful Soup twice yesterday.

For EC2 instances, the median time between requests is 11 hours and 45 minutes. So EC2 instances are being automatically redeployed twice a day. For non-EC2 instances, the median time between requests is 51 minutes, and the modal time is about zero. Those people set up a dev environment, discover that something doesn't work, and try it again from scratch.

# (0) 12 May 2013, 09:49AM: Tips for New Summer Interns: Three tips to help new Google Summer of Code applicants and interns, some of which all remote workers could stand to remember:

1. Never let yourself get stuck on a technical question or problem for more than half an hour. Take a break, ask questions in IRC or a mailing list, find a technical book to read like The Architecture of Open Source Applications, look at some other codebase to see how they do it, eat a meal, or do something else, then come back to the problem.
2. Never let yourself get stuck waiting for someone's reply for more than 2 business days (Monday through Friday). Escalate -- ask your mentor. If your mentor isn't helping, ask your org admin. If the org admin isn't helping, ask on the GSoC discussion forum, or email Carol Smith.
3. Ask yourself at the start of every day: what did I accomplish yesterday? What will I try to do today? What are the obstacles I think I will run into? If you ask yourself those three questions and answer honestly -- especially if you let your mentor and team know the answers -- then you will prevent long delays and help keep your morale up.

# (0) 12 May 2013, 08:54AM: Sorry!: I am sorry, Lakshmi Singh! I am one of those people of South Asian heritage who criticized your pronunciation of your name. I was wrong and I'm sorry.

# (3) 05 May 2013, 09:04PM: A Really Long-Winded Way of Saying That Maybe I Love Techno Now: That thought about music, love and transformation made me think of how strange and world-changing it is to find a new friend or author or musician or project or workplace and suddenly click.

They taught me in my management classes that thriving is a function of a person and their environment. That helped me to see things unemotionally. "Bad fit" really does exist.

Every collaboration will be particular, like all power and influence is particular (financial, emotional, cultural, military). You'll get leaks and emergent behavior, and sometimes you can funnel energy, but sometimes it refuses to be fungible. It withers and dies, misdirected, confused. Sometimes that joule, that heat is irrevocably specific.[0] It makes you think about lasers and firehoses, flamethrowers and kindling, and limited burns at the urban-wildlife interface, and how high the specific heat of water is, and how water composes most of our bodies, and the compressed energy inside anyone needs just the right conditions to shine.

Do you remember stoichiometry?

That was the bit from chemistry about making sure that both sides of the equation matched, if I remember Mr. Marson's class right. (I wish I still had that extra credit project, where I went through the chemistry books for names and phrases and just made up like thirty or a hundred puns from scratch and wrote them on posterboard.) If you have two oxygens, and then three more, on the left, you'll end up with five, in some configuration, on the right.

Stoichiometry is tautology. There must be a metric zillion idioms, spanning every human time and place, reducing to the identity property plus the forward direction of time. "If you stand in the rain, you'll get wet." "A hungry cat will look for food." They sound like something you'd program into Cyc. We have sayings like "recipe for disaster" and "prescription for catastrophe," but the chemical equation suits some surprises best as a metaphor, because love is chemistry[1], and because sometimes you are an absent-minded would-be scientist, putting two and two and two together and getting surprised when you end up with six and your hair on fire.[2]

If I stop by a restaurant often enough, I'll be a regular. If I work with people on something we care about, those people will become real to me and I'll find myself a member of a new tribe. If I self-medicate my mood with a particular album and incorporate it into the rhythm of my day, how is that not love? Why fight it?

I'm taking stock of my supply cabinets and my heat sources. The summer student's gotten the hang of safety procedures and requisitions and the rhythm of notes and meetings and R and late-night discoveries. I'm really just getting used to the idea that there's always going to be this lab here, that there's always R&D going on in my heart, no matter how polished the products and services I make a habit of offering to the public. That I can't stop growing and learning and changing and experimenting and compounding, that every once in a while I will run across something "new" whose existence was -- I always realize belatedly -- prefigured in the periodic table.

[0] I'm thinking of freshman year at Cal, Comparative Politics, learning about patron-client dyads, thick vs. thin relationships, the innovation that is bureaucracy, the impulse to rational-legalism, how attractive those clear roles seem and how quickly they blur in practice, how healthy humans resist not treating others as full complete people to love and hate and screw.

[1] The saying goes: lust is biology, love is chemistry, sex is physics. My take: I've always asked "what is love?" not as a hair-stroking poet by the river, but as a frantic sysadmin space-barring through man pages.

[2] But we are analog; we can't spec out our futures pixel-perfect.

# (4) 05 May 2013, 08:25PM: Music I Listen To A Lot:

• The 8-bit tribute album to Weezer
• The music that helps me get to sleep: Robyn Miller's soundtrack to Riven, Zoë Keating's One Cello x 16: Natoma, Ray Lynch, Clint Mansell's Moon soundtrack. Did you know Keating used to be an information architect?
• Guster, Easy Wonderful
• Tally Hall, Good & Evil
• The soundtracks to Battlestar Galactica and Lord of the Rings, which together combine into an almost ten-hour playlist that makes anything epic.
• Beirut, Gulag Orkestar
• Steve Martin, The Crow
• Everclear, So Much for the Afterglow
• Depeche Mode, The Singles 81>85
• Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
• Holly Yarbrough, Mister Rogers Swings!
• Belle & Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress
• Dar Williams, End of the Summer -- I think Seth gave me this album in the late 90s.
• Regina Spektor, What We Saw From the Cheap Seats -- like so many, I discovered Spektor via the "Us" video.
• Barcelona, ZeRo-oNe-INFINITY
• Lawsuit, Kind of Brown
• The Mountain Goats, The Life of the World to Come
• Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack -- Andrea Phillips turned me on to this, saying that this soundtrack has a freakishly positive focusing effect and helps her work. It's pretty good for me too.

And Rob said, "You're an everything person, you just don't know it yet."

I felt like an arrow of enlightenment had hit me right between the eyes.

I get anxious over the betrayal inherent in adaptation. To instead conceive of growth as a radical hospitality towards and nurturing of previously unvoiced parts of myself -- what a revolution.

I like movies and TV shows, I like books and stories and blogs, I love stand-up and sketch comedy, but music and travel are what I find numinous, transformative. They crack open new Sumananess that blinks in the light, unaccustomed.

"I think I would close my eyes the whole time."

# 26 Apr 2013, 06:06PM: "Thoughtcrime Experiments", Four Years On: Four years ago today, Leonard and I released Thoughtcrime Experiments, an anthology of original speculative fiction and art. It's still an enjoyable collection to read, so check it out. The authors and artists continue to publish and thrive, and I get to call them mine, but not in a creepy way! With Ken Liu especially it's thrilling that I got to play a part in the restarting of a career that's so spectacularly taken off. And how it delights me that Mary Anne Mohanraj has written a collection in the world of "Jump Space"!

I still stand by my conclusion from a few months after the initial release: to me, turning nonreaders into occasional sci-fi readers, and occasional readers into rabid readers, is a more interesting unsolved problem than curating and editing unpublished art and turning it into published art. I applaud K. Tempest Bradford's regular short fiction recommendations, for instance. But I'm superglad for the editors who love editing! Yay for writers, readers, editors, and marketers! And I understand making stuff better because I did it. You can do it too.

# (1) 26 Apr 2013, 08:37AM: Breakfast Conversation: "You can look up [shop name] to get the address. They have a map and everything."
"Oh I already did it."
"I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
"Well, I did it about five minutes ago."
"Shorter Watchmen."

And:

"Man, Mountain Goats would be just the worst songs to put into commercials. But in your arms, in your arms / I buy vegan shoes..... Like, remember when Devo did those ads where they turned 'Whip It' into 'Swiff It'"?
"Yeah, but that's not surprising, because Mark Mothersbaugh has written a lot of music for commercials."
"Yeah, but imagine some Devo fan who doesn't know that, but to whom Devo is really important, and they see that, and are like 'Aaargh!' And, like, there were probably fans to whom They Might Be Giants is, like, an anti-selling-out-machine, and then they did the Dunkin' Donuts ads."

I am listening to The Sunset Tree over and over because I just listened to a great interview with John Darnielle, Mountain Goats frontman.

# 25 Apr 2013, 10:49PM: Yep: "Upwards of 12 people in a newsroom of 1,000 sometimes find their boss difficult to work with." "Brusque" vs. "does not like to waste time." "Can you keep being awesome & getting great results but also just be softer & nicer about everything?"

"Polite, nice, kind, and good are all different alignments."

Sun May 12 2013 00:43 UTC0UTC http://www.geoguessr.com?v=eyJ0b3RhbFBvaW50cyI6MzIwMzUsInZlcnNpb24iOjEsInJvdW5kcyI6W1sicm91bmQiLCJsYXQiLCJsbmciLCJnTGF0IiwiZ0xuZyIsInBvaW50cyJdLFsxLDM3LjU2ODk4NiwxMjYuOTc4NTk1OTk5OTk5OTIsMzcuNTY4NTI4MjY1NDc2MDc1LDEyNi45Nzk5ODA0Njg3NSw2NDY4XSxbMiw1NC40ODkxNTksLTAuNjExMzQwMDAwMDAwMDQxMSw1NC40ODkxNDkxNDcyNDI3MiwtMC42MTE1ODY1NzA3Mzk3NDYxLDY0NzhdLFszLC0zNS4yMDA1ODksMTczLjEzODY4NSwtMzUuMjE3MjI0OTYzODEyMzA2LDE3My4xMTQ1NzYzMzk3MjE2OCw2MjQzXSxbNCwtMjMuNjkyNTA5LDEzMy44ODQ1Mjg5OTk5OTk5MywtMjMuNjg4MTUzOTcxMTM5MzIsMTMzLjg3MjQyMDc4NzgxMTI4LDYzNjhdLFs1LC0xOS45NzYyOTgsMjMuNDI4MTMzMDAwMDAwMDAzLC0xOS45NzYyNzI5NzgwMDQyMjUsMjMuNDI4MjQ4MTY3MDM3OTY0LDY0NzhdXX0%3D: Champions!

Sat May 11 2013 17:55 UTC0UTC http://www.geoguessr.com?v=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: If it's in Botswana, we're gonna find it.

Sat May 11 2013 16:35 UTC0UTC 15218 points w/sumana: Whee!

Mon Apr 02 2012 19:03: Friday Susie and I went and saw The Hunger Games. I was surprised to see a preview for The Host, which could be good (good book at least) and for Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which is destined to be as good as it sounds I suppose.

Although the beginning of the movie was quite jumpy and bothersome they otherwise did a very good job.

Saturday we again worked in the yard until the trash can was full. Maggie and Dalton love working in the yard and Maggie kept insisting I should do more of this kind of work and less of my normal kinds of work. I prefer the desk job, however, to weed-pulling.

After that the wind blew non-stop but we still took the kids to the park, as it was otherwise a very nice day. The temperature came close to 80 degrees. Maggie and Dalton particularly enjoyed watching kids at the skate park. Then Sunday we woke up to snow and 45 degree weather. Typical spring in UT.

If I didn't know better, I would wonder if maybe I'm in a hunger game. Given how the gamemaker can play with the weather and all that.

(2) Mon Mar 26 2012 08:41 Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey: There's nothing so tragic as seeing a family pulled apart by something as simple as a pack of wolves.

Or maybe Facebook.

Sat Mar 24 2012 17:46 turn turn turn: I really love spring. The sun setting around 7:30, the warmer weather, the ability to run outside, and oh the Vitamin D. The one downside to all of this is yard work. After leaving our yards in the hands of another for two years, what can I say, it's a disaster. She claims she didn't know the difference between our plants and weeds, and maybe that's true, but I think I'd rather be known as hating yard work than being simply that ignorant.

So today we hit Home Depot to buy some new trowels and yard lights, filled the garbage can full of leaves and weeds and stopped only when it was overflowing, I helped a neighbor move, and took the kids to the park. I can't get enough of the outdoors right now.

Mon Mar 19 2012 17:13 the world according to Miss Maggie: Things she made note of during our trip to Moab this weekend:

1. "Christopher Robbin is kind of a girl."

2. A top my shoulders, hiking back to the car from Landscape Arch "Go make something!" I thought she was talking to me, but she was talking to the wind, telling it to go make Arches and to leave us poor humans alone.

3. We left at 7 am Sat morning, with the kids sleepy-eyed and in their jammies. But first Susie put green dye in the toilet and told Maggie a leprechaun used the lew. Maggie was not happy and started crying. They she cried in the car because "We can't find Arches in ours pajamas" she told us. She had a rough morning.

4. "We might hurry before we get wet!" I might add we could see the rain clouds heading our way, blotting out blue skies and sunshine as they came, from miles and miles away. And Maggie was worried. Extremely worried. We saw 2 arches and climbed up to the top of double arch before the rains made it to us. And we had on rain jackets. And we had an umbrella with us. We were prepared but she still could not help worrying. She's such an OCD nut sometimes. I think it's the future CPA in her.

5. Telling another kids her red rock qualifications at Sand Dune Arch "It's ok for me to climb here. I just had a birthday so I'm five now."

6. Upon becoming a Jr Ranger "This is my Digi-medal, Dalton, not yours!" (Special Agent Oso reference). Other hilarious happenings not involving Maggie include:

1. A roadside java stand at Dead Horse Point called The Pony Espresso.

2. Our hotel brochure, giving free spanish lessons, telling us that "La Quinta Inn" is spanish for "free high speed internet."

3. People constantly telling us how we are their hero because we are toting two children through a national park. At first it's flattering but really it's silly. It's not like we're bungee jumping off the arches or cave-spelunking or deep see diving. We're just hiking.

Sat Mar 10 2012 20:17 The curse of a middle child: Today Susie, my sister and I were discussing the flawed social aspects of the lds church. I told her about my experience being a Sam in the church. For those not in the know, the Book of Mormon begins with the story of Lehi and his four children Laman, Lemuel, Nephi, and Sam. The two eldest are trouble makers while Sam, the middle child, appears to be a good person but who is often pushed aside in the story, is often forgotten next to the prized youngest child, Nephi.

I feel the same way at church. I am Sam. Sam I am. As such I often feel forgotten in the church. The church often focuses its energies on promoting the Nephis and on saving the Lamans and Lemuels. Meanwhile the Sams of the world struggle to find meaning in their callings, get assigned the unglamorous home teaching assignments, rarely get home taught themselves, and struggle to even maintain friendship in the church at all. The only two times I was ever treated like a Nephi was on my mission and in India.

It sometimes makes me want to give up. But I have not just yet, though the justification to do so grows over time. But what about Sam anyway. I would love to hear more about his story though most in the church would probably find it dull compared to the Captain Moroni stories we love to regale. Since the Church is a family of sorts I suppose a certain level of siing rivalry amongst ourselves is to be expected. Still it would be nice to go to church and feel wanted and have a friend.

Mon Jun 28 2010 22:29 I really need to check my job at the door: ...of the bookstore. The other day in Foyles I had to physically restrain myself from re-organizing some Beast Quests that were in the wrong order. Tonight in Waterstones I found myself recommending The Sky is Everywhere to someone looking for a gift for a 15 year old. What can I say? 3 years in a bookstore and old habits die hard.

Tue Apr 27 2010 21:34 Overheard in Stoke Newington:
1:"The only good thing about David Cameron"
2&3 in unison: "There's nothing good about David Cameron."
1"...is his taste in music."

Sun Apr 18 2010 17:48 Whigs and Tories: I went to a "mustache and wig" party as a Lib Dem supporter, but no one got it.

Tue Mar 13 2012 21:34 Backward Thinking: When planning a Redbox return, I felt a fleeting anxiety that I had not hit "rewind" on my movie. That was a strange throw-back.

(3) Fri Mar 09 2012 12:37 On that note. . .: I'm back to the blog and intend to update more steadily than in the last five years. Among other reasons, I stopped blogging because I was overwhelmed by how popular blogging had suddenly become. Does anyone else get overwhelmed by the thought of an internet audience beyond a handful of family members and close friends? I like to be a bit more off the radar, I guess. But I'm back.

Wed Mar 07 2012 13:22 Dear Ms. Fellowes:: Is this Masterpiece Theatre or soap opera disguised in period dress? Downton Abbey, how you frustrate me!

Thu Mar 01 2012 22:05 First Sweat of Spring: I did some impromptu weeding of the garden today. Actually, first I locked myself out of the house and then dug around in the dirt while I waited for the locksmith to arrive.

(1) Fri May 06 2011 21:01 Ratings: "Do I make the best guacamole in the world, Mom?" Atticus asks.

"You definitely make fabulous guacamole." I assure.

"Well. . . I am for sure in the top three."

Sat May 13 2006 21:59 Obituary: Here is the link to Mom's obituary, printed in the Bakersfield Californian on Tuesday. The death date is wrong, it was actually May 5, 2006

Fri Sep 12 2008 12:51 Funny things: I heard today...

"There are nice ones and naughty ones like 'Hey lets make Icecream sundaes tonight' is nice, while 'Hey babe, I'll bring the nuts and chocolate syrup if you bring the cherry' is naughty."

"Can you believe I'm seventy and still wearing a g-string?"

"I'm going to choke on my ice!" "Don't worry, it should melt before you expire."

(2) Wed Aug 20 2008 01:23 Museum of Ancient Life: Yesterday we went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving point. I don't care what your philosophy is on how or when or why dinosaurs etc, existed they are still cool to learn about. I hadn't been to the museum in years but it still was fascinating to walk around. Of course my favorite was t-Rex and the giant shark. I still remember years ago when all of my cousins were in town and we pretended to throw Lorna in the shark's mouth, I ducked from the caveman skeleton that was throwing a rock, and Frances posed with the archeologists because we were sure to be related!

(14) Wed Aug 20 2008 01:21 Precepting: Newsflash... I get to precept this semester in the ER at Ogden Regional Hospital. I am so excited!!!

(1) Tue Jun 24 2008 00:07 lazy: I have nothing much to report except that I am LAZY. I have always known this, but I realize that I really just pretty much do nothing most of the time. I guess it's becaus I have to be so efficent at work and school, that I can't do it at home. oh well.

Current Projects: -catching up on my scrapbook. Doing ok except I haven't started BB season and I just printed 200 new pics. Yes seriously at least 200. I have an addiction. -Finishing my recipe book. I am frusterated because I can't find my 34th ward RS cookbook and it has recipes I need. Otherwise it is looking awesome. -Cleaning my room. Not doing so well, let's be honest. -Laundry. Hate it, need to desperatly do it. and for the love it's FREE finally, why don't I just do it already!?! -petting the dogs and watching TV....very good at this.

Random thought: I went to the movies (finally saw Indiana Jones) and there was a poster that disturbed me... "No children under 6 allowed in rated-R movies after 6 p.m. Keep your child safe." ummm last time I checked children under 6 shouldn't go to rated-R movies period. Not to mention before 6 anyway...

New favorite quote: "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." -Anatole France

(3) Thu Apr 20 2006 10:20 PST School: So I am currently attending UVSC. I have had an ok experience and am ready to move on. Next semester I will be attending Blinn at Bryan, TX. I am very excited because I will be 2 hours away from my house instead of 22 hours!!! I am going to get a degree in early childhood education and am very pleased with my degree. I am currently reading a book that is called A Man's Search for Meaning written by Viktor E. Frankl. If you haven’t read this book, i suggest that you do! It has changed my way of looking at things. Take care Shell

(1) Thu Apr 20 2006 10:20 PST School: So I am currently attending UVSC. I have had an ok experience and am ready to move on. Next semester I will be attending Blinn at Bryan, TX. I am very excited because I will be 2 hours away from my house instead of 22 hours!!! I am going to get a degree in early childhood education and am very pleased with my degree. I am currently ready a book that is called A Man's Search for Meaning written by Viktor E. Frankl. If you haven’t read this book, i suggest that you do! It has changed my way of looking at things. Take care Shell

Thu Feb 07 2008 13:10 (Susanna Chadwick) Cookie Cookie Cookie!: I was going to go to the library after Maggie's nap, but she didn't take a nap, and also it is snowing and really blowy. So, instead I made Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies. Cookies! If you have been blessed with one of mom's family recipe boxes, this is in there.

1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons flour
1 cup quick cooking oatmeal
2 T unsweetened cocoa
3/4 t. baking soda
3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
16-ounce package chocolate chips
1/2 c. walnuts, chopped
Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Beat together sugars and butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture until well-blended. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. Let stand on sheets 3 minutes. Remove cookies to racks to cool.

Susie the Chef says: 16 ounces of chocolate chips is a ridiculous waste of money and chocolate chips. I put 1/4-1/3 that much. I also didn't put nuts. Even though the batter was pretty dry, I felt like the cookies had a lot of butter in them so I might use a few tablespoons less next time. Next time: yes, they were very yummy!

Thu Jan 24 2008 18:32 (Susanna Chadwick) Yummy in my Tummy: I've been trying out a lot of new crockpot recipes in an attempt to make feeding my family easier, faster, and yummier. Yesterday I put two chicken breasts and half a jar of spaghetti sauce (Ragu was only $1 at Smith's and I had a coupon - I haven't bought spaghetti sauce in years!) and let it cook on both settings for who-knows-how-long. I served it with whole wheat pasta and parmesan cheese and it was yummy. Probably the easiest meal I've ever made!

I also made an eclair cake at John's request. I made chocolate sauce from scratch because I only use it for eclair cake and I am out of money in my grocery budget this month. It was easy and super yummy. I couldn't find mom's recipe, so I 1/3-ed one I found online:

1/3 c. cocoa
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. sugar
Boil for 2-5 minutes.

PS: I uploaded some cute pictures of the bug to our picture blog - click on "Pictures" to the right. And read all my latest articles while you're at it!

Tue Dec 04 2007 22:13 (Susanna Chadwick) Taco Stack: I was a good wife and made dinner tonight. This isn't the recipe I kept the page for, but it was yummy!

1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 package taco seasoning
12 corn tortillas
shredded cheese

Brown ground beef with onion in skillet; drain fat. Add tomatoes, tomato sauce and taco seasoning. Place 1/4 c. meat in bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Place two tortillas side by side on meat mixture. Top each tortilla with some meat mixture and shredded cheese. Repeat until each stack contains 6 tortillas layered with meat and cheese. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Cut each stack into quarters. I served it with sour cream and green onions.

Also, Tasha inspired me to make babyfood so I bought a butternut squash, baked it, and pureed it in the blender with a bit of water. It is delicious! Maggie liked it too. I'm not sure it was any cheaper though. I will have to try some other recipes.

Mon Oct 01 2007 23:08 (Susanna Chadwick) Apple-Cheddar Soup: I made this earlier today and it is so yummy. I think I put too many potatoes, because it was kind of chunky.

1/2 c. finely chopped onion
1 T. butter
2 med. potatoes, diced
2 c. apple cider
1 t. fresh thyme
1/2 t. salt
dash cayenne pepper
1 med apple, peeled, coarsely chopped
1/2 c. milk
2 T. flour
4 oz (1 cup) shredded cheese
fresh apple slices

Cook onion in butter. Stir in potatoes, cider and seasonings. Boil. Simmer covered 15 minutes. Add apple. Simmer 5 minutes until potatoes are tender. combine milk and flour - stir into soup. Cook and stir until bubbly. Whisk in cheese until melted. Top serving dishes with apple slices and fresh ground pepper.

Fri Aug 03 2007 12:10 (Susanna Chadwick) Fondue for Two: Last night John and I celebrated our anniversary at The Melting Pot. Maggie got babysat by a couple in the ward with two little boys and had the best time.

We enjoyed our yummy fondue meal, but it was very expensive and now that we've done it I don't think we'll go back. We especially enjoyed the dessert fondue. The waiter told us how to make the cookie and/or graham cracker crumb covered marshmallows (just dip the marshmallows in water), so now we can just do that at home. We were thinking what a fun FHE activity that would be to do with young kids.

Fri May 17 2013 20:59 Suspicious: I have decided that Maggie isn't a picky eater, she's a suspicious eater. She really likes to know all the details about what I've made for dinner before she decides to refuse to even try it.

Today the Kindergarten took a field trip the farm. They got to pick and eat all the strawberries they wanted. Maggie said she ate so many her tummy hurt. "Maybe 17." They also got to try various vegetables. After describing them to me at length we determined that she tried a carrot (a whole carrot), lettuce, 2 peas (and she was happy to tell me she ate the pod and some friends didn't) and a "white thing with green on top that looked like a marshmallow with wigglies on the bottom." Hmm.

After school we went to park day since she was on the early schedule and finally got to go. Then we had swimming lessons. Maggie is learning how to dive and can swim the 25 yard pool by herself. Dalton just moved up to level three which means he can swim about 10 feet or so, rolling over to breathe, with an instructor nearby.

Then we went to Daphne's Greek Cafe for dinner. I carefully described all the food to Maggie and showed her the coupon flier. She decided she wanted a pita with meat and lettuce inside and hummus and pita chips. She was very suspicious about the whole thing, but said she'd be happy as long as she got her "tortilla" and meat. I ordered an adult meal for the kids to share. Dalton had a chicken kabob and Maggie had the gyro. I had to request that they leave her pita whole, and she made a little taco with hummus, pita and gyro and she LOVED it. After her first bite she said, "I wish we could have this for dinner every night." In fact, the only thing she didn't care for was the pita chips. She was also suspicious about trying the baklava.

Suspicious, I tell you. Dalton ate his chicken and half my Greek side salad. I ate the veggies from his kabob, had my own kabob and a street pita. Sooooo good.

After dinner, we walked to the fancy market next door, which I'd never visited. We browsed the produce section to find Maggie's mystery vegetable she tried. Turnip? Parsnip? Rutabaga? Nope. It was a green onion. Maggie actually did like green onion already but perhaps has only seen it sliced up. Anyway, that was her favorite thing she ate all day.

Sun May 12 2013 12:18 On Being a Mom: Sick kids. Actually, we're all sick. Dalton and Sienna both went to bed when we got home from Disneyland yesterday - at 4:30. Dalton stayed in bed until nearly 10, and Sienna woke up to eat at 7 and is going on the third hour of her nap. Tired, sick kids. Dalton throwing up meant one of us had to stay home from church. John kindly agreed to play the organ, in addition to accompanying the children while singing in Sacrament Meeting, and during Primary, and helping Maggie with her Primary talk. All of which things I am missing, in addition to lunch (lunch!) during the 2nd and 3rd hours for the fanciest Visiting Teaching Conference ever.

How annoying that I have to spend Mother's Day doing throw-up laundry instead of at church where I can hear about what a great job I'm doing as a mother! I mean, how lucky am I? How lucky that I can stay home and snuggle my boy (and, presumably, my feverish baby, if she ever wakes up). Because this is what being a mom is about. Not free food (sigh) or getting to see my kids sing (or not) to me in Sacrament Meeting, or even hearing Maggie give a wonderful Primary talk. It's more about making beds and breastfeeding. More day to day than extraordinary. The key is to make the day to day something special. Excuse me while I hide from monsters with otter-pop-mustache boy.

(I can't neglect to mention that John and the kids picked out some beautiful tulips that were delivered a couple days ago. John also bought me a new shirt that I LOVE and Dove caramel chocolates (one of my favorites). How lucky is he that a stripey shirt from Target that fits well makes me quite happy?)

Sat May 11 2013 18:48 All Done Disney: We went first thing this morning to California Adventure. We were there when it opened and got in line for Radiator Springs Racers. Right after John and the kids got off, the ride shut down. So I didn't get to go, but at least they did. We took turns on Soarin' Over California, then went to Disneyland. John tried to take the kids on Star Tours, but they would not let Dalton on. So instead, I used a Rider Switch pass from last weekend to take them on Space Mountain. Of course the ride broke just before we got on. It was just backed up, but it took 20+ minutes for them to reset. During that time Dalton un-psyched himself out and he did not want to go. I made him get on, though. We also waited in line for Casey Jr. just before they had some engine trouble. Ugh!

After that, we went to the Jedi Training Academy. The kids finally got picked - yay! They were so cute in their robes with their training light sabers. Maggie was really focused and did a great job. Dalton had a hard time, but tried his best. Unfortunately, he got pretty scared when Darth Vader arrived. He didn't want to go fight him, and he ended up coming back to sit with us. They still gave him a certificate though. Maggie showed her skills in fighting Darth Vader. I'm really proud of her.

We let the kids each pick one more ride. We waited in line for Alice in Wonderland for Maggie, then John took the kids on Haunted Mansion while I fed Sienna. If you're counting, Alice is the only ride Sienna went on today. John and the kids also went up in Tarzan's Treehouse. Then we took the train all the way around Disneyland and said goodbye.

John is planning to take Dalton one last time on Monday morning, but since we have gymnastics after school, Maggie, Sienna and I are done. I am almost relieved. I have felt like I *need* to go to Disney rather than doing other fun things, and it is a lot of work. Having a hot, disappointing day was a good way to end it, but I know I will miss Disney when the weather cools and the holiday season begins. Next year!

(1) Fri Aug 05 2005 08:40 (Pete) The Eagle Has Landed: We made it. I'm writing this now via some neighbor's wireless.

(13) Tue Aug 02 2005 23:06 (Sumana) The Right To Bear Fardels: During a recent summit The Poor Man made some nonsensical remark denying that there's any humor in C.S. Lewis or Shakespeare. One of those half-drunk "contrarian = sophisticated" bits of bollocks.

In refutation, I've found my favorite (so far) joke in the Bard: Act III, Scene 2 of Hamlet, the bit about Guildenstern, Hamlet, and the pipe. Gertrude has sent Tweedlecrantz and Guildendee to check on why Hamlet Jr. is acting so crazay. Our goth protagonist asks Guildenstern to try playing a recorder.

GUILDENSTERN
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET
It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN
But these cannot I command to any utt'rance of harmony. I have not the skill.

HAMLET
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd upon than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Mon Aug 01 2005 12:37 (Riana) Geeks, Fire, and Dangerous Things: Seth and I were at Defcon in Las Vegas this weekend. Seth got our friend Praveen to bring Seth's giant Fresnel lens to the con when Praveen drove out on Saturday. The Fresnel lens is roughly 1 meter in diameter. On Sunday afternoon, as the con was winding down, we took the lens (wrapped in a black sheet for safety) out to a quiet back lot behind the convention hotel and, though the sky was overcast with a thin cloud layer so that we could not focus direct sunlight through the lens, we set some stuff on fire. Seth brought four pairs of welding goggles and two pairs of sunglasses for the group, plus safety gloves for whoever held the lens. It was about 102 degrees out, scorching hot even with the clouds, but before the heat drove me back indoors, I watched Seth and David Weekly burn a brown spot into the side of an aluminum can; turn a piece of wood to charcoal; set aflame and burn through a handful of dry grass; and light an onlooker's cigarette (placed on the ground, not in his mouth!). They also tried unsuccessfully to melt a penny and a quarter. I guess it's not as easy as I thought to burn through your money in Las Vegas.

(1) Sat Jul 30 2005 14:35 (Sumana) She's an ENIAC: From phone conversations today I gather that Leonard and Frances are visiting the American Computer Museum. In contrast, I'll be enjoying Will Franken's comedy shows tonight, whose most computer-related joke is probably his absurdist "voice command for file cabinet" bit. You can get a hint of that style in his "Show!" clip.

Note to local comics I saw in the back room of a pizza place last night: it is possible to do good spam and Match.com jokes. Please try harder.

Sat Jul 30 2005 06:15 (Pete) Mr. Joad's Wild Ride: Today Annalisa and I start our drive out west. On our first trip out, we lost a mirror in the middle of Nebraska at 80 mph, ran over a tumbleweed in Colorado, got our truck towed in LA because it was in 7th Heaven's shot, and almost rented Charles Manson's quaint Topanga getaway... here's hoping for a less exciting trip. Here's also hoping that I will be able to post while I'm on the road. California, here we come!

(5) Sat Nov 21 2009 15:28 On death and dying: Nothing prepared me for the day one of my kids asked me why do people die?, so naturally when Lily asked me that question I was dumbstruck. We decided to buy the new Pixar movie Up. It came highly recommended by many people including Louise, who is a very tough critic. She rarely thinks anything is "really good" so I thought it really must be good.

Aaron popped it in for the kids. I was puttering around, getting things done, and still haven't seen it. It wasn't until the next day while Gunnar was napping, and Lily was watching it as I was doing the dishes. When all the sudden I heard this sad little voice and teary eyed girl peeking over the arm of the sofa almost begging me mommy, I don't want you to die. Why did Ellie have to die? When will she be back? I want Ellie to come back. I don't want you to leave. Why do people have to die? Where do people go when they die? I felt ill prepared to answer all these abstract questions in a way a 5 yr old would understand. All I could do was hug her and cry on each other's shoulder. I know it was wrong, but I promised her I wouldn't die, at least anytime soon. She was so sad and I wanted to reassure her and make her feel better.

Death is such a difficult topic and I think it is every child's worst nightmare. We talked about heaven and the resurrection and eternal families and I think we both felt better. It made me remember life is short and fragile and as a result I have not yelled at my kids as much this past week. I used to ask my mom what would you do if I died? And she would always say I would spank your little bottom. Death is something I struggle with and definitely don't want a lesson on it anytime soon. So the moral of the story is if you watch Up with your kids you might have to explain the mysteries of the universe with your kids.

(5) Tue Nov 17 2009 15:44 for your eyes only: So last week, I tried to write a health care post about my health care of all things. A couple hours after I had posted it, my brain reflected on it and I just about died inside to think I just shared with the world my IUD problems. I quickly got to a computer and deleted it and spent the rest of the night feeling sheepish and wondering if anyone had already read my open book life.

Today, I will give it a go again, yet this time about Gunnar and with much less TMI. Gunnar's health care. My poor little baby Gunnar. I adore this little boy. I could eat him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still snack on him throughout the day. Gunnar is and will always be my baby. This little guy went in for his "6 month" ophthalmologist appt. He was actually a few months overdue for a proper one since the past two were right before the move and right after the move and weren't proper appointments at all. We finally got the full blown appt out of the way and have been given two official diagnoses. First, our suspicions are correct. Gunnar has intermittent exotropia. Basically, one eye wanders when he is tired or not on his A game or zoned out. He can have surgery to correct it, but it really isn't too bad yet and the Dr and I both agreed that it is something to look into when he is older like 6 or 7 when "kids start making fun of his eyes in school" as the Dr put it, since his condition is very mild right now. Kids are so mean! And they probably will make fun of him, so when he is older and if it gets worse we will look into that, but for now he is ok. Just ignore his wandering eyes if you speak with him face to face and he zones out.

Secondly, his nearsightedness is now a raging -6.50 in both eyes. A whole 1.25 higher than last dilation. He's legally blind, but with his glasses he has near perfect vision, and it is very correctable with surgery if he chooses to get lasik when he is older. All in all, it is nothing serious. He is a happy, healthy boy. Sometimes, as his mother, I wished my body had been able to make his body more perfect, but there my vanity goes thinking I am responsible for creating my beautiful children. They are Heavenly Father's children and he is just letting me borrow them to discover tremendous happiness, and just a touch of torture.

But, there it is. Gunnar's health update. He is turning 3 in exactly 2 weeks so I better get onto making his well baby check up. Then we shall see how much this boy has g r o w n!

(2) Wed Nov 11 2009 11:33 Burr, it's cold in here: This is all quite new to me, the wearing jackets in Oct and not really letting up. In TX the year Gunnar was born, I was so excited to not have to be my largest in the summer. It may have well been summer because as I recall, it did not get cool until the day I left the hospital with him. Geez, thanks!

Oh sure you might need a zip up in the morning, but by 2:00 you were sweating. I literally NEVER EVER wore jeans from the months of May-Oct. For 6 months I wore shorts every day. Even in April and Nov, the jeans were worn intermittently. But for those 6 months I didn't even look at jeans.

Yesterday, to make more room in my closet, and because I have a large Rubbermaid labeled jeans and sweaters that needed to be unpacked (and still one in the garage), I gathered all my shorts that I haven't worn a single time in a month, and all Aaron's shorts and exchanged places in the Rubbermaid with the jeans and sweaters.

It's not that it has been too bad here, gorgeous weather actually, but if I am not dressed properly my toes and hands will be frozen by 4:00 on. In SA I remember wearing flip flops year round. If it was too cold to wear them, that's ok because I knew by the afternoon I would be fine. It goes like this in the winter-mornings and evenings it is cool. Midday is warm. For a week or two we could have a cold front and then it is chilly, but then it goes away and for 3 weeks you are left with "perfect winter weather" picnic weather if you will. And the cycle continues.

Now maybe I am a tad cold because we haven't turned our heater on past 66 degrees. Perhaps. We are trying to save money, electricity is a lot more here, and all I have to do to get comfortable again is vacuum. (Why does that job make you sweat even in the winter? You are just pushing the thing around.) OR my new favorite thing is what Aaron calls my Back To The Future vest. It is AWE--wait for it--SOME. I have it in a couple colors, and it's perfect. It keeps you cozy at the same time freeing your arms to do household chores without feeling constricted like sweat shirts or jackets do. Plus, Old Navy is having 50% off all their outerwear. (Ok, online they are not quite 50%, they are more like 30% off and they have half the color selection so go to the actual store.) Go and get you one, and if you have an Old Navy card like me, you can get it for another 30% off that making it only $14. It's that awesome.

Now I am looking for some rain boots, because every week it rains cold rain here ALL DAY LONG from anywhere between a day to 5 days straight. My feetsies get cold walking around with wet socks and tennis shoes. So if anyone one knows of awesome rain boots for cheap (you know me, it's gotta be a good deal) please let me know.

(1) Sat Nov 07 2009 14:53 Brisk: During my early morning run today, the sweat from my hands came out on top of my gloves and then turned frosty. I could tell because I was wearing black gloves and it looked like they had been flocked a little bit. Pretty weird--I've never had this happen before. Yeah, it was cold!

Sat Oct 31 2009 13:33 There were four in the bed and the little one said: I love lazy Saturday mornings. I awoke to Gunnar's noise and decided I wasn't ready to get up for the day and that I wanted to see if Gunnar was old enough to snuggle in the morning. Lily is at the age where she will lay down for a couple minutes but I didn't know if Gunnar "got it" yet. I went and got him and brought him in the bed. He knows what snuggling is because at night he always asks for me to snuggle just a minute so when I told him that he went for it.

It's seriously one of my favorite things to do is on a Saturday morning when no one has to be anywhere, just to lay in bed and snuggle and play and laugh with the kid(s). Gunnar is the most affectionate little guy. He leaned over to Aaron sleeping and kissed his cheek and said "I love you daddy". He then snuggled into me and said "I love you mommy, you're my big boy". He calls me that because I go between saying "You're my baby" or more lately "You're my big boy" so now he calls me his big boy too. He knows the difference between boys and girls which makes it that much funnier to hear him say it.

Gunnar leaned over and was pointing to my eyes and said "eww, what's that brown stuff?" I had a little smudged eye liner on from the night before that didn't wash off and he goes "that's disgusting." lol little noodge. Lily woke up finally and came in. Then I got to really snuggle-this girl knows how to spoon. It was the complete family, all four of us in the bed spending time together. It was a great way to start off the day.