Items by paulboal

• Christmas Card

  —Salamasond

  Note the postmark on this card from our friend in the FBI:
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: December 17, 2009, 8:58pm EST
  by paulboal

• Messy Play

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  I'm not great at keeping the house clean to begin with, so the idea of messy play is usually a bit intimidating to me.  I guess I have to be in the right mood for it.  Tonight, though, was finger-painting night at our house:
  
  
  [...]
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  Posted: December 08, 2009, 12:51am EST
  by paulboal

• Lessons Learned Today

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Superglue near eye burnsGlasses are hard to fix when the frame itself actually breaksThe new Super Mario Bros game is chaos with four people all playing together... fun chaosPreparing the night before for a 10:55 flight is more relaxing than preparing for a 7:20 AM flightBeing fewer than 2,000 words [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 10:53pm EST
  by paulboal

• 10 Random Things to be Thankful For

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  48,061 words on NaNoWriMo / PragProWriMo with 3 days left to goFriends willing to watch our dogMargaritas and Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter CupsNintendo WiiMy wifeMy familyMy brother-in-lawChildren who go to sleepChristmas musicLifeI can be silly and sentimental in the same post if I want to! [...]
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  Posted: November 27, 2009, 10:47pm EST
  by paulboal

• 38,761 words; 158 pages

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  
  PragProWriMo going well and looking for a strong finish over the next week!! [...]
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  Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:39am EST
  by paulboal

• Getting it done

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  I really have to give a lot of thanks to Sarahlynn for how much fun I'm having this month with NaNoWriMo / PragProWriMo (despite having come down with an annoying cold yesterday).  See "snot" reference.
  
  Setting a pace of 2,000 words per day for 6 days' [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 11:05pm EST
  by paulboal

• Liking People

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  ...not licking people...
  
  It occurred to me just now that maybe I would like people more if I took the time to learn more about them.  Not that I don't really like people, but I just don't take the time to ask people at work about their personal lives.
  [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 5:27pm EST
  by paulboal

• Accountability

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  "People aren't accountable enough for things..." is a phrase that I heard at work a few times over the past couple of years.  The phrase bothered me a lot.  I couldn't tell why, but it gave me one of those visceral "that doesn't make sense!" reactions.
  
  Tonight, I finally' [...]
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  Posted: November 04, 2009, 11:14pm EST
  by paulboal

• Running Log 2009-11-01

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Distance: 3.01 miles
  Time: ~30 minutes
  
  My favorite part about this run: after a little bit of warm-up and providing for a little bit of cool-down at the end, I ran the entire distance without walking.  Lately, I feel like I haven't been able to' [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 8:49pm EST
  by paulboal

• PragProWriMo Begins

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  It's begun.  Less than 8 hours later, I'm off to a running start at 1,492 words!
  
  Track my progress on my NaNoWriMo page or my Sharpening Stones blog. [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 8:10am EST
  by paulboal

• Almost Time to Write!

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday and one of my favorite tech publishers is encouraging geeks to participate, too! [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 2:03am EDT
  by paulboal

• Time to run

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Tonight's run was a bit ambitious, and a huge success!
  It's also fun to have do a one-way run, because it really is productive on multiple levels: exercise and transportation! [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 2:01am EDT
  by paulboal

• Happy National Computer Science Education Week!

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  Mark your calendars!  The week of December 7th is officially National Computer Science Education Week.  I'm a big fan of the idea.  In fact, I wrote a paper in my Argumentation 101 class in college that suggested that every liberal arts student should be required to take an introduction' [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 11:16pm EDT
  by paulboal

• What are we teaching?

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  I hadn't been following this story until today, but I have to stop and ask "what are we teaching our children when we give them a punishment with potentially long lasting punitive impacts for doing something that has the potential to cause harm?"
  
  That' [...]
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  Posted: October 14, 2009, 7:58am EDT
  by paulboal

• Politics in School

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  I'm proud to say that my daughter's elementary school (the whole school district in fact) will be showing President Obama's speech this week.
  
  I'm dismayed by what a controversy this speech has become in general.
  
  It amazes me that anyone would even consider pulling their kids [...]
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  Posted: September 07, 2009, 8:24am EDT
  by paulboal

• Running Log 2009-09-31

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Still going pretty strong with the running.
  
  Tonight's route had some tough hills on the first 1/2, but that really does make the second half go so much more easily!
  
  Logged 4.2 miles tonight.' [...]
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  Posted: September 01, 2009, 11:48pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Still going....

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Today's total:
  6.2 mile bike ride around Forest Park (with 80 lbs of girls in tow).
  4.2 mile run up and down some good hills.
  
  Phew.' [...]
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  Posted: August 30, 2009, 10:49pm EDT
  by paulboal

• First Day of Kindergarten

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Ack!
  
  Ellie's off for her first day of Kindergarten. Mom and Dad are awfully nervous, but Mom is going to school to have lunch with Ellie.
  
  I think she's going to love it, but I know that she's nervous about it. There was very little' [...]
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  Posted: August 17, 2009, 10:31am EDT
  by paulboal

• Running Log 2009-07-19

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Today's run: Shooting for my 5-miler this week
  Distance - 5.07 miles
  Time - 01:12:00
  
  Grant's Trail, from Big Bend to Grant's Farm and back.
  I did a brief walk in the middle at Grant's Farm, and walked the last 0.7 miles. So, I'm not' [...]
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  Posted: July 19, 2009, 10:16pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Running Log 2009-07-16

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Today's run: Trying to go a bit longer
  Distance - 4.2 miles
  Time - 00:53:00
  
  I walked up a couple of hills... the Adams/Couch corner in Sugar Creek Valley is pretty steep.' [...]
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  Posted: July 17, 2009, 9:23am EDT
  by paulboal

• Running Log 2009-07-14

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Today's run: Running with Grandma tonight! (My mother-in-law.)
  Distance - 2.7 miles
  Time - 00:37:43
  
  Not much distance tonight, but part of it was running up the hill in Sugar Creek Valley! Not fair!' [...]
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  Posted: July 15, 2009, 11:02pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Running Log 2009-07-13

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Today's run: First one with my new shoes.
  Distance - 4.69 miles
  Time - 01:05:00' [...]
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  Posted: July 14, 2009, 11:13pm EDT
  by paulboal

• A running I will go!

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 2
  
  I've decided to take up running as a standard part of my workout routine. I gave it a try several weeks ago... and realized it wasn't so bad. Maybe I was expecting a worse experience considering the 50+ ft elevation change that occurs withing 1/4 [...]
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  Posted: July 13, 2009, 8:18pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Mii NOT Fit, yet

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  We got a new Wii Fit exercise game last night: EA Active
  
  I thought that I'd been getting a good, well rounded exercise routine with the eliptical machine, running, and occasional Wii Fit work out. My 40-minute workout last night blew me away. Way too many squats, squats' [...]
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  Posted: June 23, 2009, 6:53am EDT
  by paulboal

• Aggregate / Summary

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  One of my wife's pet peeves is when technologists take a word that already has clear meaning in the English language and then twist the definition to mean something not-quite-close-enough in a technical context. Great case-in-point in the world of data warehousing:
  
  What is the difference between an' [...]
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  Posted: June 19, 2009, 12:07am EDT
  by paulboal

• That's Overweight!

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 2
  It may not seem like something to be proud of, but this past week, my Wii Fit finally started telling me "That's Overweight!" This, rather than, "That's Obese!" It doesn't sound great, but it sure felt great!!
  
  I've still got a ways to go, but [...]
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  Posted: June 18, 2009, 11:48pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Potty Training Again

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 2
  T-minus 32 hours and counting....
  
  The morning of Sunday, May 31st will be Ada's last morning in diapers. The plan is to train Ada tomorrow afternoon. With luck, we'll be done in 4 hours and into a mode of "dry pants?" checking throughout the day rather than diaper changing.
  [...]
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  Posted: May 30, 2009, 7:20am EDT
  by paulboal

• Dead Phone

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 2
  My phone started seriously flaking out on Tuesday. In the morning, I was trying to call Sarahlynn and it kept dropping the call. I didn't have a usable signal all day long. I couldn't get a data connection to keep synced with my work email/calendar. Of course, I've had lots' [...]
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  Posted: May 29, 2009, 7:56am EDT
  by paulboal

• Fast Shoes

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Thanks to my wife's planning, it's been a weekend full of fun family entertainment: Gateway Arch, Greek Fest, Renaissance Faire, Zoo, and more to come today!
  
  From 2009-05
  Saturday morning, we packed the girls in the car and headed down to the Arch. The girls [...]
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  Posted: May 25, 2009, 6:18am EDT
  by paulboal

• Ada Lovelace Day

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  March 24 is Ada Lovelace Day.
  
  My own Ada (Adelaide), who looks more akin to Einstein here, was named partially for Ada Lovelace -- our criteria was that it should be a name not typically associated with children in our generation, preferably a family [...]
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  Posted: March 24, 2009, 1:33am EDT
  by paulboal

• Even Lego-People are Giddy

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  It still feels a long time away (thought it's the day after tomorrow). And every time I think about the inauguration, I feel giddy. There are a lot of challenges in the world and reality always gets in the way of expectations and plans... still, I think there's a lot [...]
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  Posted: January 18, 2009, 9:44am EST
  by paulboal

• Two Fishermen

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Forwarded to me by a co-worker:
  
  Two men went fishing. One man was an experienced fisherman, the other wasn't. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw' [...]
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  Posted: December 11, 2008, 12:16am EST
  by paulboal

• 100,000

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  Today, I was at the largest Obama rally ever... 100,000 people showed up in St. Louis, today, to hear Obama speak.  Wow.
  Here's what 100,000 people under the Arch looks like:
  
  From 2008-10
  
  And here's Barack Obama looks like!
  From [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2008, 5:18pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Mathematical Reflexes

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  One of the blogs I read regularly posted a reference to a Nature article about a correlation between a kind of mental reflex and mathematical acuity.
  Take the NYT test
  I got 14 out of 15 just like the blog author.  How about you? [...]
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  Posted: September 20, 2008, 8:16pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Midnight Conversations

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 2
  [Actually 1:30 AM Conversations...]
  "Daddy?""Yes""Daddy?""Yes.""Daddy?""Yes...""Daddy?  Woody missing his arm.""But they can sew it back on.""Daddy?  Ellie's arm.""Does it need a kiss?""Yes Daddy... Thank you Daddy."
  ' [...]
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  Posted: September 04, 2008, 1:39am EDT
  by paulboal

• Ugly Taste

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  [Unrelated forward: I've always found phrases like that, "ugly taste," -- phrases that mix sensory adjectives with a differen sense -- interesting.  I'm reading (via audible during my commute) Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.  He does an outstanding job of this in a lot of different places.  In particular,' [...]
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  Posted: September 04, 2008, 12:51am EDT
  by paulboal

• Still no pig

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  "Alas. No prob this end."
  "We have cheese."
  "Still no pig."
  "Next."
  
  Crack me up! Sarahlynn discovered the "drafts" folder full of unsent text messages on her phone. These were the last four message that she hadn't ever sent. Something makes me think thank her T9 didn't guess [...]
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  Posted: August 23, 2008, 12:27am EDT
  by paulboal

• That Time Again

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 4
  You'll notice a new feature on my sidebar - the read-out from electoral-vote.com.
  
  It's that time again. I don't know what we'll do in this house with the debate and election season. The last two presidential election cycles were pretty dramatic for us:
  
  In 2000, we were [...]
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  Posted: August 04, 2008, 7:21am EDT
  by paulboal

• INTP

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  As most who know me would probably expect... I'm an INTP.
  ...
  My team at work has a couple of challenges. First, 80% of the people in the department we're part of have been there for less than a year. Second, people don't understand much about what we do. The' [...]
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  Posted: August 03, 2008, 1:04am EDT
  by paulboal

• Duct Tape

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Yes... I am an engineer.
  
  WD40 (from my last post) is second in value to duct tape.
  
  Two years ago, I was looking for a Christmas present for my uncle. I decided that he needed a duct tape wallet and a book [...]
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  Posted: July 25, 2008, 8:20pm EDT
  by paulboal

• Testing again. Hope...

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  Testing again. Hope it works this time. Who knows. listen
  
  Powered by Jott [...]
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  Posted: July 25, 2008, 12:55am EDT
  by paulboal

• Silent Victories

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  
  I'm a bit of an introvert... or at least I claim to be.
  
  One of my pet peeves is squeaky swing sets. Having two young children who LOVE to swing means that I keep a can of WD40 in the minivan at all' [...]
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  Posted: July 24, 2008, 9:04pm EDT
  by paulboal

• New PC(USA) Blog

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 1
  
  
  After some discussion and waiting for discernment to guide the way, some friends and I have started a new Presbyterian Church (USA) community blog: PC(USA) Bloggers. Share. Contribute. Think. Enjoy! [...]
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  Posted: July 14, 2008, 7:30am EDT
  by paulboal

• Memories

  —Salamasond

  Number of comments: 0
  I like making memories with my family...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  And it's a lot of fun to look back and think about them from time to time,' [...]
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  Posted: July 06, 2008, 8:26am EDT
  by paulboal