New Friends
last update: 05/14 @ 22:58
Robert made friends (and hammed it up a bit) with the animals in this sculpture while we were in Miami and points south last weekend. We had a great time and we avoided the rains that where flooding Mid-Atlantic. There are lots more pictures in Robert’s section.

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last update: 05/07 @ 10:42
Robert decided he needed a keyboard for the train he was driving on the front porch this morning. Hmmm…. we just looked at the photos from the Tweetsie trip, including the mouse mine train. Maybe that has something to do with it….

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Fun with blacklights…
last update: 05/06 @ 15:31
Robert and I took a trip down to North Carolina over the weekend (Sarah had too much work to do to join us). Robert’s favorite part was this Mouse Mine Train trip on the grounds of the Tweetsie Railroad. There are more photos of the fun in Robert’s section.

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Why Microsoft Word?
last update: 05/06 @ 09:21

(no Robert content here, sorry)

I was talking with a long-distance friend last week. Her computer was running slow and she thought removing some unused software might help speed it up. But she accidentally removed Microsoft Word in the process of cleaning up. She asked if I had a disk that she could borrow to reinstall from. I hunted around but couldn’t find anything very recent so I suggested she just download OpenOffice. She was a little dubious but went ahead and did that.

The next time I talked with her she reported that OpenOffice passed her tests (I’d warned her that it might not be perfect for heavily formatted files or the very latest version of Word files): she could edit and print her files. Then she asked why people spend hundreds of dollars for Word or similar software when there were free alternatives.

I had trouble thinking of any reason for a home user (and writer) like her. I did point out that larger organizations often feel more comfortable with the idea of support from Microsoft (I didn’t think to point out that the support is often difficult to access and may not really help much). And those organizations may feel the need to be compatible with the latest and greatest file formats (though not many organizations upgrade to the latest and greatest quickly).

So I really had some trouble with her question and I wonder if the inertia of always using Word is the real reason so many copies are sold and installed on PCs (of course Word is often bundled with the purchase of a new PC so the cost is hard to see and clearly much less than retail).

The best answers I could come up with that there was no marketing behind OpenOffice other than word of mouth and that OpenOffice is a late comer in terms of a really solid, stable, compatible alternative — in my opinion, it is all three now but has not been for too many years.

You may want to give OpenOffice a spin: it’s more than just a word processor, it also includes a spreadsheet program, presentation program, drawing program and database program. If you try it out and find it useful, consider donating time or money to the project. If it doesn’t work for, just remove it.

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Southbound
last update: 05/02 @ 12:56

My boys are southbound. Headed toward a fun weekend in the NC mountains for Pop-Pop’s birthday! ….And I’m here. Work & school overwhelmed me, I freaked out and decided I need to not go anywhere this weekend or take vacation days. Robert appears to be having a fine time as he plots which relative will read which new story book I sent with him first. I will miss them as I lounge in my bed reading the New York Times Sunday paper uninterupted..

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“Flowers”
last update: 04/26 @ 17:15
Robert and Justin share a similar sense of gardening, maybe. Justin and I were talking about weeds and Liz pointed out that weeds are flowers that have been fired. So Justin said that means if he doesn’t “fire” the dandelions, they aren’t weeds. I couldn’t argue with that. Nor could I argue with how much fun Robert had running through his dandelion “store.”

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That kind of day…
last update: 04/20 @ 17:26

It was just the kind of day that cried out for jumping in puddles. After getting some dry clothes after our expedition, Robert liked the picture on the right the best. I liked the lower photo better — but that’s just me.

This puddle behind the blue park benches was just big enough that walking around, his pants got wet. Once the pants were wet (a little bit wet) it was easy to go ahead and slide down the slide (to get them really wet before heading home — of course, we found a few more puddles on the way back).

It’s a small price to pay, but the storms that gave us the cool puddles also seem to have knocked out our Internet connection several times throughout the day.

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Scuba Robert!!!
last update: 04/18 @ 19:39
I’m not sure where it came from, but Robert decided to be a scuba diver this afternoon. With no prompting he picked out an air tank (Sponge Bob scoccer ball) and mask (tupperwear) to wear. We do get a couple scuba magazine that he has looked through, and there was the Christmas present for Sarah’s dad last Christmas. Either way, I don’t know of any recent events that might explain why today turned into scuba day.

Robert was having fun and that’s what is important, after all.

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Carousel
last update: 04/17 @ 21:09
I picked Robert up a bit early after the “Springfest” fun at his daycare. That meant we had time to go by the Smithsonian Carousel again. Always a nice treat. Today, we were able to get on the seahorse! (Hard to see in the photo, I know.) I guess he’ll be ready to hold on by himself by the end of summer.

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Mystery Solved…
last update: 04/17 @ 21:06
I’ve been wondering what was making the especially odd sound on the railroad tracks behind the house. This morning I caught the culprit. They are spreading new gravel along the tracks and this is the contraption that smooths the gravel out.

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