Blueberry Surprise Sandwich

This afternoon I had one of those rare bright ideas that just needs to be shared so other parents might be able to put it in their toolkit or build upon it.

While making a pb&j sandwich I thought that if hid a blueberry somewhere in the sandwich I could simultaneously get the mermaids interested in eating lunch and maybe even get them to eat their entire sandwich in search of the singular blueberry treasure.

It worked.

Abby found hers halfway through and wanted another hidden treasure in the other half and Emma cruised through her whole sandwich so fast that she didn’t notice when she got her surprise.

The only rule was no peeking and no poking.
In both cases mission accomplished (lunch was eaten) AND fun was had along the way.

don’t be alarmed

Those of you that visit my site directly, let’s call them less technologically inclined friends. You know who you are because I maintain your computers, or your parents computers, or your 90 year old friends computers.

Anyway, if you don’t use RSS feeds to read blief you may notice a change.

It isn’t your web browser. It isn’t your monitor. It isn’t a hacker.

It is me, changing my theme for the first time ever I think? It started out as an update to the software to allow my iPhone the ability to post things with pictures. That took about five minutes and then…scope creep.

Then I figured I should add my new twitter feed into the side-bar for some nice integration. That didn’t work because I didn’t update my software far enough. So I went all the way to the newest version. Ten more minutes.

Then I thought, since I am in here, why don’t I look at some of the cool new minimalist themes…15 minutes of looking around. Cool! I like this one. Simple, clean, fast.

Done…but you know, I said to myself

if that blockquote thing was any more obnoxious I don’t know what is.

45 minutes later I hacked little teensy pieces of just about every bit of this theme. Things you will never even see. It is a very nice theme by the way, laid out in a very understandable way. Many thanks to the author.

But I digress.

Ack! MORE scope creep!

So then I get back to the cool sidebar thingie where I add my twitter feed…oh yeah, forgot my primary audience for this post) That thing on the right side that says ‘blief tweets’ – that is an automatically included bit of information from an entirely different site where I post very small bits of stuff every once in a while, sometimes pictures. It is really easy to use but since I have the ability to post stuff directly to this blog now…maybe I don’t care anymore about that thing. Time will tell.

And then when all was said and done, I stepped back and said, it is good.
AND REALLY DIFFERENT

So, I had to write this post to let you all know that I meant to do it.
And yes, I will work on getting my nifty header pictures back in there somehow…yes with Mermaid shoes and all.

Mermaid shoes? Does that even make sense?

Ayyyyy! See what I mean?

Coupla hours and 400+ words later and I am really tired – all because of a simple, push-button upgrade.

Black River commute

Tonight I snapped a picture of a particularly nice looking part of my commute. The leaves, while a little slippery, are very pretty. Later they will leave interesting dyed patterns on much of the sidewalks.

The diligent observer will notice that I have installed my fairing on my Cruzbike Silvio. It works well enough but I still may end up removing it in favor of simplicity. All that I MUST keep warm is my hands. The rest I can keep warm enough with clothes. My hands? always freeze.

I created this post (except this note and an edit on the picture) from my iPhone…new better tasting – with pictures.

iPost pumpkins

Yesterday we got our pumpkins, all 125 lbs of them.
We hadn’t really planned on being there because the weather was kinda crummy but a momentary clearing and a flawed game of rock-paper-scissors meant we would risk it.
Turns out it was the highlight of our day.

And this is also my first test post with my new tech-toy.

Womens Recumbent World Record – 12 Hour

I just “watched” (virtually) Maria Parker of Cruzbike set a new world record for a recumbent; I am actually a little confused on what exactly the record is was because claims abound and well…they tell me it is a new world record and I believe them. I know what it is now.

Jim, over at CyclingExperiences.com, live-blogged the whole thing keeping us Cruzbike enthusiasts on the edge of our seats all day with hourly updates (every time she crossed the start line).

According to his post Maria Parkers World Record she traveled an incredible 240.1 miles in 12 hours an amazing average of 20.08 mph.

As of this writing the record is not certified but it is certainly amazing!
Way to go Maria Parker!

And much thanks to Jim at CyclingExperiences for setting up shop in what sounds like a remote part of North Carolina to keep us all informed.
You can see his flickr photostream here

Oh yeah, and one of the interesting parts of this story, somewhere on lap #7 Maria suffered a minor crash because wind gusts and wheel covers don’t mix. They quickly changed to her back-up bike (her husband’s bike that was outfitted for her, which by the way is another really cool feature of the Cruzbike Silvio) and she only lost an estimated 3 minutes. She rode her husbands bike the rest of the way.

And the coolest thing, for me personally, is that she did all of this on a (specially outfitted but still) stock Silvio; just like mine.

For part of the time she had wheel covers true but for Lap 7-12 she had no wheel covers and questionable weather with wind gusts and all.

I am so impressed.

The AR System

At the office I am Product Owner / Systems Analyst / meta-developer on a particular project. In this project I am helping to configure a very powerful and complicated suite of applications called the Action Request System (AR System). This system has, among other things, a system server and each application in the suite has it’s own “process”. In this case I was configuring the Assignment Engine (which I think is one of those applications) to perform special actions based on a particular set of rules.

One of the actions it *could* take was one that we didn’t want it to take. We didn’t want the default behavior and in fact we really didn’t need anything to happen
BUT
an idiosyncracy of the system is if there wasn’t an action directive for that process we couldn’t do ANY of the other directives. So the architect, let’s call him Joe, said

Just put a dummy rule in there, do something that will resolve to false.
You mean like If 1+1=3 Then X?
Yeah.

I created the process within which I would put this rule and stopped.
I didn’t want to have to craft the rule, if it didn’t really matter, so I said

What if I just leave it (the rule in the process) blank?
Hm, I dunno, see if it takes it?

It did and I was on my way.

Later, after some other configurations, and a bunch of test cases (translated into about 24 commands) I reported a problem. The Assignment Engine (AssignEng) wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do. In fact the whole system server (AR System) seemed to be having issues.
Joe looked into it for a while (4+ hours) and found, under continued questioning and at my insistence, that I broke it.

The following is a chat extract.

Joe:[] AssignEng Processing 24 pending command(s) of category AE-ASSIGN.
[] AssignEng Processing pending command DoAssign.
[] AssignEng Starting to process DoAssign command.
[] AssignEng **********************************************
[] AssignEng Initialized system.
[] AssignEng AR System Assignment Engine 7.1.00 Build 200708221849
[] AssignEng Initialized access to AR system.
[] AssignEng Found pending command form.
[] AssignEng Initialized. Entering message processing loop.
[] AssignEng
[] AssignEng Checking connection to AR system.
[] AssignEng Connection to AR system is working.

Joe: See those 24 “pending commands” up at the top?
Joe: When it would try to process them…the server would crash…
Lief: ok
Joe: It would do the following:
1) Come up
2) Try processing those 24 commands
3) Die
4) Restart
5) Repeat….every ten seconds until the sever was hosed.
Joe: Nicely done, BTW!
Lief: thanks. : )

Everyone on that team admits they hadn’t seen an application/process/thing like this bring down the main server (AR System) before and that it was broken in an amazing and profound fashion.
All this goes to show that I am not limiting myself to the physical world anymore.

I’m takin this show virtual baby!

Normalcy

Last friday I was on the Central Link light rail leaving Seattle…and I was late.

I had already missed the faster commuter train and was using the Link to get me closer to home so I could go fast for 20 minutes instead of having to go fast for 50 minutes.

Both put me home about the same time but one gets me home more rested – ready for a night out with The First Mermaid.

I was the fourth bike on the car and moving my Silvio side to side at each stop to stay out of the way of pedestrians, of which there weren’t many. At one stop two “fare checkers” boarded my car and swept the joint. After they were done and perhaps one minute before the next stop they approached me purposefully. By the way, they interrupted a casual conversation with a fellow cyclist about my bike that had started something like ‘that’s one hell of a bike.”.

The first one, for lack of a better name let’s call him TDee, waved and wagged his upright finger at me and my bike and said

Sir, your bicycle is not authorized to be on this train.

By this time TDum had taken his place by TDee’s side.

I was astounded. I thought they were joining the pleasant conversation I was having with the other cyclist and now I was presented with the sudden and real possibility that I would be kicked off the train, and somehow I didn’t “fit in”. And furthermore I would be REALLY late for my date. I couldn’t have that. Date’s are infrequent occurrences at best and besides…he just wagged his finger at me and my babybike, did he not?

What? Why not?

TDum this time, helpfully;

Sir, you are in the best position you can be in on this train, you really are, (referring to me being out of the way of peds) but your bike just doesn’t fit.

What is the problem? I don’t understand.

At this point who-said-what get’s a little hazy but the wording was clear.

That is not a normal bike.

I reacted to that like the mother of a small, innocent, and insulted child. I got a shot of adrenaline (probably why who-said-what gets a little hazy) which clarified my thinking and I replied, leaning forward, with a small amount of mock confusion,

What? Why…ahhh, would you please define “normal” for me? What is a “normal” bike?

TDee pointed at the bike-hanger and stammered, looking over the geometry of my front wheel drive, moving bottom bracket, 700C, short wheelbase, recumbent bicycle and was obviously confused. It clearly didn’t match his thinking and was in direct conflict with his directive…but he couldn’t figure out why or how – because there really was no problem.

I had a flash of the engagement I had two years ago with the conductor on the Sounder who claimed that my chainring being exposed, as it was, to the “people” on the train was somehow inherently dangerous and I followed TDee’s eyes to my chainring. But TDum helped out.

Well, it doesn’t fit. It couldn’t be hung up there (in the bike cubby).

By the way, even if I COULD hang my bike in that cubby, (which I have tested, and I can) I don’t want to.

The problem is that it is free hanging nub of a hanger that you hook only one wheel over and with every bump, stop, start, and course correction of the irregular track and driver the bike rattles and bangs all over the place. Really lame solution if you ask me.
It is also a real trick to balance yourself, in cleats, while en/disengaging your bike, holding it in mid air as the train is lumbering to a start/stop. Much, much easier to just keep the rubber side down.

I replied, with conviction

I could hang it there, absolutely.

Then TDum made a measurable statement.

Well, your bike is just longer than those.

At this point I unfolded my drive-train from it’s “tucked” position and said

It is not?! If you put his bike right down next to mine you will see that the wheelbase is the same.

…and just in case “wheelbase” was too much jargon for them I added, pointing with both hands at the same time along the vertical line of each axle,

Where each wheel hits the ground is identical.

I was taking a wee chance on that one but I knew the difference was negligible and I considered that point settled because they had just given a brief, eyebrow-raising, stand-up-straight, moment of recognition. Okay, ready for the next one.

You see, I have read about these altercations, and heard all the arguments before – I had that clear thinking-ness rolling and was ultra-confident they couldn’t convince me anything was wrong.

I was also confident that they would STILL kick me off of the now stopped train, out of pride or authority or spite…or all three.

Their next action was the most surprising of all (and probably a really good reason not to call them TDum and TDee, at least not TDum anyway).
TDum turned to TDee and muttered something low and in passing and without another word or even a glance at me; as if it had never happened, they just…got off the train.

I was still bristling (inwardly, and perhaps outwardly as well) but basically kept a cool (to me) visage and “talked ’em down”.

The other cyclist, as he was getting out, shot me a questioning glance that said “what the heck just happened?”, shook his head in confusion, and got off behind them.

It took me about four miles, three mock-continued arguments (wherein I always won – again), multiple retellings, and one blog post to put it behind me.