November 2003 Archives

Now I’m running Fedora on foo, bar, baz, and moo. I’m not sure if I’m ready to install it on tic, but it may very well happen. I’m considering installing it on some Iodynamics servers! That’s how nice it is.

Hecticus Maximus

As yesterday was Thanksgiving, Christine sent some e-mail to the family mailing list saying how thankful she was to be a member of the family and all. I followed it up with one of my own. I expressed my thanks to Smoochy* and Jennie for letting us live in their house. I also expressed sadness they were having marital problems and expressed hope they could make progress.

I spent a good deal of time wordsmithing this particular paragraph because I didn’t want to say something like, “We hope Smoochy* figures out he’s a nut-job and gets some treatment.” I really wanted my message to be positive and to convey a sincere sentiment.

Boy, was it received the wrong way.

First off, Smoochy* sent me the following e-mail:

I wasn’t around when he sent the e-mail. I’m guessing he was waiting impatiently for my response because twenty minutes later, I received this:

I was really blown away. I didn’t think I had said anything which could be interpretted as “lashing out.” I didn’t say anything about me being better than him.

Then, twenty minutes later...

So... I wrote back... hoping to explain that I hadn’t meant any offense, that I really did hope things would get better for him.

Smoochy*’s response was eerie:

I had to go do a wiring job at this point. Christine called me about two hours later to tell me she was a little shook up because Smoochy* was airing some dirty laundry on the family mailing list. When I checked, this is what I saw:

Alright. Even if it was true that I had intended some offense with my “hope you get the help you need to become a better person” message, Smoochy* was clearly taking the gloves off, going below the belt, and more.

I probably should explain what I can about what Smoochy* said. Christine and I don’t know what he means about Christine wanting a divorce. She felt like divorcing me back in 97 when I was having trouble in school and got depressed. It never went past general frustration and we worked it out.

The church thing... heh. I’m not even sure I should go there.It’s kind of a personal thing.

As for the finger-painted women... They weren’t videotaped — I took still photographs. And they weren’t intoxicated. Well, they might have been, but not enough to be obvious. I thought they looked cool and they agreed to let me photograph them. You can see some of the pictures I took here.

Smoochy* has two sisters who have been in school studying art. I wonder how he feels about them drawing nudes. Heh heh. I guess we better have an intervention and help them see the err of their ways.

My biggest question is this: “Why is Smoochy* talking like he’s representing a group of people?”

I found his message really amusing, actually, because I could tell he was going for shock and embarrassment. In the end, he only embarrassed himself and shocked everyone else in the family because of his shallowness, immaturity, and over-reactiveness.

I didn’t bother replying.

Christine did, though.

And Smoochy* replied within 10 minutes:

Whoa. Smoochy* airs what he thinks is dirty, incriminating tidbits about me and then tells Christine there’s “no need for harsh words.” This isn’t a new phenomenon with Smoochy*. Par for the course for his hypocritical behavior. It used to be fun to point this kind of stuff out. Now it’s just sad.

Jennie replied later in the evening to Smoochy*’s message.

Jennie’s good.

Ahhhh. Thanksgiving. We do have a lot to be thankful for!

A floor to walk on

I was at the house last night until 3 a.m. working on the hardwood parquet floor in the great room and the kitchen/dining room. I probably put down about 70 square feet of wood and I have a big blister in the middle of my right hand from trowelling glue to prove it.

The floor is looking real nice, though.

Jennie, Christine, and the kids came out last night too. The kids mostly played around or watched DVDs on the laptop. Jennie and Christine painted some more and cleaned up the floor so I could put the hardwood down.

Thanks

I feel so fortunate and grateful for everything I have. I live in a great country led by a president who has genuine compassion for the people he serves. Great things can happen when our country is being led by individuals who really do care about helping people do better with their lives and not just about helping people.

I am very grateful to my business partners Chadd, Dave, and Mike. I am especially thankful for Mike because he is so good at what he does and he believes so strongly in the future of Iodynamics. It keeps me going when I have my doubts. I’m also very grateful for the confidence he has in me and in our company. Mike once said, “It’s great working with people who believe in each other.” That’s the truth.

I’m also very grateful for my wife and kids. I am a very lucky man to have such a beautiful and smart woman as my companion and three beautiful, healthy, and fun kids.

Alright, we’re heading out to my parents’ for Thanksgiving dinner now!

Jennie filed decree of separate maintenance, AKA legal separation, documents today.

It’s nice to see some progress on our home.

All the ceilings upstairs have been painted now. The walls should be ready to paint by tomorrow. We’ve patched dozens of nail holes and other kinds of minor damage, so it’s just a matter of going over that again and making sure everything’s smooth and ready to go.

Yesterday, I tore up all the carpet, pad, and tack strips in the kitchen and great room to make way for the parquet wood flooring. Today, however, we’ve had a small change in plans. We’ve decided to do ceramic tile in the main kitchen work area and the wood flooring everywhere else in the kitchen and great room.

Here are some other updates on our progress:

• My mom and dad took up all the linoleum in the kitchen and main bathroom.
• My mom washed down all the walls with a trisodium phosphate solution
  to get them ready for paint.
• My brother has applied tape and two coats of mud to the new ceiling
  in the main bathroom. One more coat and it should be ready for texture
  and then paint.



• Christine’s dad and I installed a garage door opener yesterday.
  It should have been a 2-3 hour job, but it ended up taking a lot longer
  because we needed a couple extra bolts and had to drive through a
  snowstorm to a home improvement store to get them. Then, we had some
  problems adjusting the opener once it was all installed. We had to take
  the cover off the motor once to figure out the gear that spins a threaded
  shaft holding a contact plate which slides between the
  “opened“ and “closed“ sensors was not aligned
  properly and fix it. Then, we had to take the cover off again to discover
  we had replaced the cover backwards. :-) Works great, now.
• My mom washed all the light fixtures and cleaned the master
  bathroom.
• I ordered some inexpensive carpet from Home Depot. I would have
  ordered some nicer, more expensive carpet, but Home Depot would have had
  to have ordered it from Georgia and it would not be installed until just
  before Christmas. By settling with what they have in stock, we save some
  money and get the carpet installed in the next week or so. Plus, it kind
  of makes sense to get cheap carpet when you’ve got three kids under
  the age of 6 and a dog. :-)

It’s been very cold since yesterday with the high temperature for each day not exceeding freezing. Driving yesterday was really bad and there were lots of accidents around the Salt Lake valley. Fortunately, nobody I know was involved in any of those accidents.

Finally, I just wanted to take a moment and say how grateful Christine and I are to all members of our families who have volunteered to help us with our new home. Especially my parents and my brother. They’ve been out there almost every day and have offered invaluable suggestions and advice.

We’ve made some progress on the house. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re getting closer to being able to move in.

We’ve patched most all the nail holes and other minor damage to the walls and ceilings. I got the water heater pilot light lit and now we have hot water. I fixed the leaky faucet in the bathroom bathtub. Last night, I painted the ceiling in the kitchen and great room. The paint looks good.

Yesterday, I took the ceiling down in the bathroom where there was water damage. I got up in the attic and raked a lot of the insulation off the ceiling, but I finally just gave up on raking it and figured it would be faster to let it fall down and then put it in garbage bags and haul it back up into the attic once the new ceiling was in. I was right. Putting it in bags was much faster.

I figured it would be easier to install a shower light in the bathroom while we had the ceiling down, so I did that after the old ceiling came down. My brother was a little irritated with me for doing that because he felt I could do that any time. I guess he’s right. I didn’t think it through as well as I should have. I am still used to thinking in “basement mode” where there’s no easy way to get into the space above the ceiling once the ceiling is up. It’s different upstairs.

Last night, Tom came and put the new ceiling up and started to mud and tape it... but he can’t finish it until we get the wallpaper down that is in there.

Appliances are ordered. We need to get some carpet picked out and ordered. So... we’re getting there. I’m still hoping we can move in within the next couple of weeks.

Pictures!

The bathroom, sans ceiling	The bathroom, sans ceiling
The bathroom, new ceiling	The bathroom, new ceiling

You might think, because of the decrease in Smoochy*/Jennie content in the Fozzolog, that things have settled down somewhat. Well, that’s just wrong. Things have been getting worse... but it’s so pathetic, it’s only barely interesting enough to mention.

Hecticity Tenacity

Smoochy*’s been living somewhere else for a while now. Since he and I had words, I guess. But, he still comes around, just about every day. When he does come around, he usually has something insulting to say to Jennie. Fortunately, his stays are usually short.

He didn’t know I was out of town last week until Thursday or Friday, so his stops were pretty brief until Friday when he stuck around for a while.

On Sunday, he showed up after church, dressed for church. Neither Christine or Jennie saw him at church (I didn’t make it to church Sunday because I didn’t make it back from Logan until 4:30 a.m. or so), so they were somewhat surprised to see him all dressed up.

Christine asked him, “Did you go to church, Smoochy*?”

“Did you go to church, Christine” was his response.

“Yes. Did you go to church?” Christine asked again.

“Did you go to church?”

Christine could see this was getting silly. She told me later Smoochy* seemed like he was ready to jump out of his skin. He seemed very tense (more the usual) and anxious. So, in an effort to defuse the situation, Christine asked him again and, I guess, playfully tickled his abdomen as she did so.

Smoochy* grabbed Christine’s arm and forcefully twisted it behind her back.

“You don’t need to hurt me, Smoochy*,” Christine said.

“That’s what I do. I go around and beat people up.” Smoochy* responded, and released her.

I was actually in another room of the house holding Eli when this happened. Nobody told me about it until later — after Smoochy* had left. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t hear about it then.

On another occasion, Smoochy* came in a door and Jennie was standing there and the door opening broke one of her fingernails. Jennie told him it broker her fingernail and asked him if he was going to say he’s sorry. All he could say was, “Are you going to say you’re sorry?”

Christine and I have tried to restrain ourselves from giving Jennie any advice. But I did tell her if Smoochy* was bothering her, she should at least suggest or ask him to leave the house. It’s a pretty safe assumption Smoochy* would refuse if she did, but I told her she should then record what he said so she’d have a written record of what he had done, her request, and his response.

Monday night, Smoochy* showed up and told Jennie he’d switched credit cards again. He does this, apparently. When he runs up his credit cards to the limit, he just takes advantage of one of those offers to do a balance transfer to a new card with a zero percent or very low introductory rate. I don’t know why he doesn’t just work on paying off his credit cards, but he doesn’t. He puts everything on his credit cards- gas, lunch, groceries, etc. and nobody knows why. It’s not like he’s hurting terribly for cash.

Well, when he announced this latest credit card transfer to Jennie, Jennie commented that he should have talked to her about it before doing it. He blew up and told her he could do anything he wanted and it wasn’t any of her business. She told him it wasn’t unreasonable to expect him to talk to her about such things before doing them — that’s what normal married people do, she said. They talk about things before they go ahead and do them.

Smoochy* didn’t like that at all. He flew off the handle and started telling her she was judging him and that she was crazy and was a liar. It was at this point that Jennie decided to take my advice and told Smoochy* she thought he was being a jerk and should leave. In perfect 10-year old social-skill fashion, he shot back, “You should leave!”

Jennie walked downstairs and he didn’t follow. He did leave shortly after that.

And these are just the highlights. Smoochy*’s behavior has been getting worse and less... shall we say, sane? I’m really concerned about his mental well-being. I’m just not saying that in a “Smoochy*’s a looney” kind of way. I mean, he’s so... impossible to talk to. Whether it’s because he’s developed some kind of schitzophrenia or other mental illness or that he’s just overwhelmingly consumed with rage, I don’t know. Regardless of what is causing his increasingly erratic behavior, he needs some kind of help.

Jennie had talked to an attorney about filing for legal separation a couple weeks ago, but decided to hold off on filing when she learned Smoochy* had agreed to participate in some counselling. Incidentally, their first appointment is tonight.

But now... sheeeeeeesh. She’s talking about skipping the legal separation and going straight to divorce. It’s sad, but the more Smoochy* says and does, the harder it is for anyone, let alone Jennie, to believe he could reconcile what’s he’s done and live peacefully with her again.

Jennie’s parents are really upset about what’s happening, but they’ve been very supportive and have offered to make it possible for Jennie to stay in her house.

So, there you go... Jennie’s holding up remarkably well considering the disintegration of her marriage around her. I’m seriously concerned about her safety and well being after we move into our house... but we’ll have to deal with that when it happens.

Meanwhile, Jennie started her new job on Monday. She’s going to be an emergency room registrar at a local hospital. She’s been doing paid training and orientation this week and, so far, she loves it.

Because Smoochy* took both the computers from upstairs, I set up my laptop for Jennie to use. When I had to take the laptop with me last week, I set up one of my computers downstairs for her to use. Because my laptop sort of bit the dust on my trip, I pulled out another computer that was just sitting around doing nothing and set it up for her upstairs so she can send and receive e-mail and do everything else she needs to do.

Well, there you go. Consider yourselves updated.

It’s the beginning of a new era.

Starting today, I’m going to be working on Iodynamics stuff in the morning, spending my afternoons at the house in Riverton, and then doing more Iodynamics work in the evenings. This will, hopefully, enable me to not lose touch with my work and still get lots of work done at the house.

Today, I installed a new kitchen faucet and sprayer and replacing a missing p-trap and tee under the sink. I also moved a bunch of my tools and the ladder out to the house.

Tomorrow, my brother and I will be taking a close-up look at the water damage above the bathroom. We’re going to first identify what caused the damage and then proceed to replace the damaged drywall in the ceiling, remove the swamp cooler box, and repair the roof.

We’ll also start washing the walls down with TSP so we can paint everything.

(Roughly over Amarillo, Texas) I’m on the flight back home now. Just watched “Freaky Friday.” the inflight movie. I enjoyed that a lot more than that stupid “League of Extraordinarily Lame Gentlemen (and a chick)” film I saw on the flight to Atlanta.

The last day of the class went pretty good. I was able to finish the material by about 2:15, which gave me 15 minuts to answer some final questions and bid adieu to the guys who were my students.

I really do enjoy teaching these classes. I wish I could do it more often. I think it went really well considering I have not taught for a while.

I think it would be cool if Guru Labs could send me back out there when they do the system administration class, but they’ll probably have some more full-time guys by then and they won’t need me to fill in.

Things at Iodynamics have been slow this week, which is understandable considering I’ve been two time zones away.

I was planning on doing a lot of Iodynamics work from my hotel room in the evenings, but it just wasn’t working out. My laptop just couldn’t handle the load of running Apache, PostgreSQL, KDE, and Mozilla-Firebird in a responsive manner conducive to software development. It may have helped if I had some more RAM in the computer, but I suppose the point is moot now anyway since the laptop is probably hitting the trash can or something. I don’t know what I can do about the keybaord problems. Something’s probably fried. It’s frustrating to me because I can’t do anything about it. If it were a desktop computer, I could probably fix something like this, even if it meant replacing the motherboard... but where these laptops use pretty specific components (I think), it seems pretty useless.

The semi-good news is that I have another laptop - a Sony VAIO - a client gave to us to see if we could fix it. We determined the problem was either the hard drive or the hard drive connector. Either way, we said, it would be too expensive to fix it if they were just going to use it for desktop computer anyway.

I’ll try to fix that computer and if I can fix it, we’ll see if we can pay or credit our client for the laptop for its parts. The hard drive in my old laptop is only a few months old, so if the problem with the Sony is the hard drive itself, then fixing it is easy: move the hard drive from my old laptop into the VAIO.

According to the computer-generated map they’re showing on the screen, we’re a little more than 50 miles past Amrillo, TX now - getting close to the Texas, New Mexico border.

Yesterday, the message light on my hotel room phone was blinking. I listened to the message. It was the front desk telling me I had received a letter sent to the hotel. I knew Christine was sending me something, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

I went down to the front desk and got the letter. It was from Maya and had a cute drawing inside. She also drew a picture, I think it’s supposed to be me, on the outside of the envelop. Some guy saw me looking at it in the elevator and said his kids did that to him too and told me I needed to store it in a shoebox somewhere. Heh heh.

I didn’t bring enough changes of clothes to make it through until Friday. I had planned to hit a laundromat on Wednesday or Thursday to get a couple days of clothes washed and cleaned, but I couldn’t find any nearby coin laundries in the phone book.

So, when I asked at the front desk about the letter, I also asked them if there was a coin-operated laundry in the hotel (I thought there might be, but I hadn’t seen it or any signs leading to it). The guy at the front desk told me where it was, so I took some clothes down last night (the clothes I’m wearing right now, in fact) to get them clean. I was a little surprised to find the washer and dryer did not require any money to operate. They were coin-operated, but they were set up so all you had to do was push the empty coin slot tray in and then you could use the washer or dryer....

My stay at the Marriot Courtyard hotel in Alpharetta was really pretty good. The free continental breakfasts in the morning were the best I’ve ever encountered. The maid service was always top-notch... except for the time they threw away the big McDonalds cup I was using even though I purposely didn’t put it in the garbage can. And then, the free laundry service. Wow. Cool.

Well, we’re probably over New Mexico now. That means it’s all downhill from here... uhm, figuratively speaking... uh... whatever.

I’m going to try to get some sleep now since I’m shifting time zones again and because I need to be well-rested tomorrow morning when I go to Logan to do a premise wiring job for one of our clients.

It's the last day for me here in Alpharetta, Georgia.

The class has gone fairly well, I think. I've received positive comments from the students and the education staff at the site.

I'll be leaving today around 2:30 p.m. or so in order to return my rental car and be to the airport in time to catch my 5:40 p.m. flight back to Salt Lake City (via Los Angeles... ugh).

I ran into a problem with my laptop computer last night. I was installing Fedora on the laptop last night and the laptop keyboard froze up. It wouldn't accept any input. So, I rebooted the computer and started the installation over again. That time it got to disc 3 before it froze up. That was frustrating because it was only about 2 minutes from being complete.

I took the keyboard out from the laptop and checked the connections inside. Everything looked fine. I tried to boot the computer into Windows so I could just check my mail. The boot loader was corrupted. I booted off the Fedora CD in rescue mode and reinstalled the boot loader, but there was no boot configuration file. So, while grub got written to the disk, there was no boot configuration.

And my backspace key and my right arrow key would not work.

So, I gave up. My laptop has had a good, long life. It's time to move on.

Here are a couple more pictures from Georgia.

The site where training takes place.

The training room

I'm going to see if I can get some more pictures of the facility.

I went to a movie tonight. I saw The School Of Rock at a theater here in Alpharetta, GA. It was a fun movie. Jack Black's amazing!

Britney Spears' PR folks are hard at work trying to increase sales for her new record. She's on the cover of the entertainment section of today's USA Today that landed outside my hotel room door this morning and Drudge is running a link to a story over on abcnews.com which talks about how Britney is comfortable in her own skin.

I really enjoyed reading the following quote, which the author didn't even try to make more coherent:

“You know what, when I was younger, ...I used to run around my house, naked, when I was 13, And people, my dad would be like, I was just very like, free.”

— Britney Spears

Update: I guess some people who read the above weren't really sure if I was posting about this because I'm a Britney fan or what. I guess I just wanted to world to know just how very, like, really, articulate she is. She's like, way very cool.

Taking a lunch break here. I think I'm finally getting used to the new time zone. Yesterday was a bit tough, though.

Alpharetta, Georgia is a pretty area. Softly rolling hills and lots of tall trees. The area I'm in is chock-full with hotels. I've been told it's because Atlanta is the “convention city” and also “gateway to Florida.”

Because of this, however, I've been warned my commute back to the airport on Friday afternoon is bound to be... hairy. Because my flight out of Atlanta leaves at 5:40 p.m. I should be at the airport at least an hour early. I'll need to get the rental car back to the rental agency before that as well. It's looking like class will be dismissed pretty early on Friday — probably around or before 3 p.m.

Hi. I'm in Atlanta.

The trip went well. The plane arrived in Atlanta 20 minutes early. I had to be strip-searched at the Salt Lake Airport (stripped of my shoes and belt, anyway) and had to deal with the embarrassing experience of having that wand thing go off over my, uhm, button snap on my jeans.

The in-flight movie was “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” which I watched an hour or so of before I got sick of it and listened to music instead.

After getting to the Atlanta airport, I fetch my suitcase and found the car rental desk. They set me up with a compact car (which turned out to be a white Dodge Neon that reeks of cigarettes) and told me where to go to catch the shuttle bus to the car lot.

The car lot was about a mile or so from the airport and the directions I had to the hotel were from the airport. So, I had to figure out how to get back to the airport and then follow the directions to find my way to the hotel. The hotel is in Alphretta, George which is about 20-30 miles north of the airport. The journey took me past downtown Atlanta and onto a toll road. I had a ten dollar bill handy for the toll, but it was only $0.50.

The weather here is fine. Probably 55 to 60 degrees outside. It feels a tad bit colder because of the humidity, but I saw some bugs flying around when I got my luggage out of the car, so it's not that cold.

Obviously, with it being night and all, I can't really comment on how Georgia looks. All I can say is that there are a lot of trees. Who knows? Maybe they aren't trees at all. I'll get back to that in the morning.

The (sweaty) Doran in Georgia

I'm staying at the Courtyard in Alphretta on Deerfield Parkway. High speed Internet access is complimentary and there's a complimentary breakfast as well. We'll see how that goes.

The Internet access is working well and set itself up well. I just had to configure my Linux laptop to get an IP address via DHCP and then try to browse the web. Doing that redirected me to a private website that thanked me for using the Internet access, made me agree to some user agreement, and then I was allowed to do what I needed to do (i.e. ssh).

I'm starving. I'm going to go see if I can find something to eat before I head to bed.

I’m leaving for Atlanta tomorrow afternoon. Of course, that doesn’t spell any kind of interruption in the Fozzolog. I’ll still be able to keep my hordes (heh) of readers up to date as I’ll have high-speed Internet access from my hotel.

Let’s get this over with.

Jennie got a job yesterday as emergency room registrar at Alta View Hospital. She was really excited because that was the job of the several she’d applied for that she wanted the most. She starts in a couple of weeks.

Christine and I took Jennie out to dinner last night to celebrate. That was fun.

Jennie also went to speak with an attorney yesterday.

Running into old friends

Today, we went to the Sears store out at Jordon Landing in West Jordan. Jennie got some new shoes for her job and I bought some new jeans... for my job... as a person... who... needs to... wear pants.

Anyway, we took two cars there and after Jennie and I had gotten into the Subaru to go over to Wendy’s to get some lunch, Christine called me on my cell phone. She told me to come back because she ran into our old friends, Ken and Wendy. Well, not literally. One might think she hit them with her car the way I said it, but that’s not what happened. They saw us in the parking lot and went over and talked to Christine.

To be honest, I wasn’t particularly excited to see them. Mostly because I was really, really hungry and also because I have mixed feelings about them.

Christine and I used to be best friends with Ken and Wendy. We would spend our holidays with them and spend weekends at their house when we were still in school at Utah State University. Then, Ken was offered a job at Microsoft... and then, he accepted the job.

They moved to Washington.

When they came back to visit for the first time, I felt Ken had been completely brainwashed. Since he and I spent most of our time talking about technology and computer science topics, it was difficult for me to deal with him espousing Microsoft at every turn.

So, I decided it just wasn’t feasible to maintain the relationship I had with Ken. I was angry and hurt that he would go work for, well, the devil. I felt the friend I had had died or something and this zombie lemming beast was put in his place.

So, anyway- I drove back to the Sears parking lot and talked briefly with Ken and Wendy. I’m afraid I wasn’t terribly social, again because of the hunger and the less than jubilant feelings I was having about seeing them again.

It was a brief conversation and then we were off to eat our lunch.

Later tonight, however, Ken called me and we talked on the phone. We didn’t talk about computers. We didn’t talk about work, really, at all. We didn’t talk about the chasm in our friendship or anything like that. We just talked about fatherhood, movies, and other stuff.

He asked me how Thom was doing with Sons Of Nothing (Ken, Thom, and I know each other from high school). He asked if I was still making videos like I used to. I feel bad I didn’t really ask him what he’d been up to. I guess I was just scared to hear about dinners at Bill Gates’ house involving ritual sacrifices of baby goats to try to improve Windows security.

Overall, however, the conversation was more than pleasant. It was nice to talk to him again. It was nice to know we could get along despite the differences in our operating system alliances. I wish we could go back to the way it was five or six years ago, before he sold his soul (heh), but this will do.

Preparation status

I’m packed. I have no idea what I’m in for. I’ve never been to Atlanta in my life. The closest I think I’ve been would be St. Louis or Washington D.C.

My flight back next Friday will take me from Atlanta to Los Angeles and then to Salt Lake City. I hope I can find a good book.

Well, I’m hooked. I tried Diet Mountain Dew Code Red this week and I like it a lot.

House on touse

We have a closing date on the house. It’s Monday, 17 November. It would have been earlier — like next week — but I will be out of town next week teaching a class in Atlanta.

Incidentally, 17 November is the last day we can close on the house. When HUD accepted our offer on this house, they informed us we had no more than 45 days to close on the house. The 45th day is 17 November.

Fortunately, HUD will have all their stuff signed and finished by then. We’ll just have to sign our stuff and the transaction will be done.

So... the day approaches.

Some pictures!

It’s picture time!

Eli shares recliner space with some other babies.	Eli dons his holiday cheer.	Lucy hosts an impromptu party and invites some local babies.
	Maya shows off the black cat she had painted on her face at a Halloween party.

Matrix Revolutions

Christine and I went and saw the third installment in The Matrix triology tonight on it’s opening night. It was nice to go to a movie again. Christine and I haven’t been to a movie in a long, long time and this is one we’d both been looking forward to seeing.

Visually, I thought the film was superior to the previous two. I wanted to watch it in slow-motion to really absorb and appreciate the detailed special effects. I was dismayed there weren’t any of the realistic action scenes (which take place in the matrix itself) like there were in the other two films. No car chases. No playground brawls.

Overall, I’d say I was disappointed with the ending of the trilogy. I’m disappointed with how the story ended up. It almost feels like the Wachowski brothers gave up on trying to tie things up in the end.

But, it was worth the matinee price.

Hecticity Permeability

Smoochy*’s been gone since Monday morning. I think he’s been back to the house every day since then, though, to pick up more stuff like clothes, pick up his mail, and bring his computer back so I could copy stuff off of it for Jennie.

The longer Smoochy*’s gone, the more Jennie, Christine, and I realize he’s been spinning everyone a web of lies. The scary thing is nobody really thinks it’s a deliberate thing. It’s just how Smoochy* is. I can attest to that. He’s always been prone to exaggerate about everything, but lately his exaggerations have been outlandish and some outright lies have surfaced.

For example, Sunday night, when Smoochy* and I had words and I asked him to just stop talking to Jennie about their relationship and their issues, I confronted Smoochy* about a document Jennie had run across on their computer in which Smoochy* had created a detailed list of things about Jennie he didn’t like. I told Smoochy* I was really shocked about this because that just didn’t seem like a healthy thing a husband should be doing — dwelling on things that bug him about his wife.

Smoochy* responded saying that his church bishop asked him to compile that list and that it was none of my business what was in it. I looked at him in disbelief because I could not believe his eccliastical leader would suggest or request such an action.

On Monday, Jennie actually outright asked the bishop if he had made such a request of Smoochy* and he said had never asked Smoochy* to do such a thing.

This is just an example of the countless lies, exaggerations, and deceptions Jennie’s had to deal with. The more Jennie learns of these lies, the less likely she is to hope for reconciliation.

Ironically, Smoochy* insists it is he that is the victim of falsehoods. Of course, he also insists Jennie is insane, mentally unbalanced, mean, unforgiving, and deceitful.

We asked Smoochy*’s dad to act as a mediator between Smoochy* and Jennie because the e-mail exchanged between them was getting inflammatory and overly emotional, but I think either he didn’t understand what we were asking him or he was just too bothered by what was going on to really do it well.

The idea was that a mediator could filter the messages passed back and forth to ensure that only non-inflammatory, fact-based messages were being exchanged. This would include messages like, “You received a package today. I put it by the front door,” or “I deposited a check in X account yesterday.”

Anything more emotional than this is likely to cause problems.

Today, for example, Jennie sent this message to Smoochy* (via Smoochy*’s dad):

Please let Smoochy* know that BigO Tires called and his tires are in. Also,
Steve & Anne called last night, and wanted Smoochy* to know that he is welcome 
to stay with them, they would like him to call them.

Also, just let him know for me, that I do love him. And I do hope that we   

can work through things.

Now, I think Jennie did a fairly good job of being factual and diplomatic here. However, if I were mediating, I would have eliminated the second paragraph altogether. While it’s a nice sentiment and it shows that Jennie is trying to be optimistic, it could trigger negative reaction.

Well, Smoochy*’s response came through verbatim and included the following paragraphs:

Please let Jennie know that I already told her that I wouldn't be staying  
with anyone. I'm going to live in a place at least as nice as the house 
even if not as large. It's better that we both live in something that 
isn't a hole in the wall, even if we have to sell the house. Do you 
honestly think I'm going to be forking out huge money for the house while 
living in a crack in the sidewalk? Not going to happen, let's sell the 
house. We have a lot of bills and it's the only way I can manage to pay 
for everything. 

...

Due to Jennie's anxiety problems I understand that we have to do this 

go-between stuff. It might be a lot easier on everyone, including 

Jennie, if the doctors would just double the dosage of Paxil. This must be 

looked into. Others who are on Paxil and know Jennie are recommending it. 

They say here dose is just too small and that it won't do much.

Without criticizing Smoochy*’s funky logic, it’s interesting to note that he plainly does not understand why a mediator was requested as he continues to lob inflammatory insults at Jennie saying she has anxiety and depression problems that are affecting “everyone.”

I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I’d like to think Smoochy* and Jennie can work this out, but it seems like Smoochy* continues to dig himself a deeper whole every time he opens his mouth or sends e-mail and, historically, he’s far too proud to admit he’s wrong and take back the things he’s said.

In fact, when Jennie asked him to apologize to her for swearing at her a few weeks ago, he eventually apologized for getting upset but disclaimed his apology to include that it didn’t cover what was actually said — he actually meant those words.

One of my good friends commented that it seemed like Smoochy* was acting like he had a brain tumor or something. He asked me if I thought Smoochy* was seeing another woman — if that could explain his behavior. I told him the brain tumor theory was probably much more likely. Who knows? Who knows if we’ll ever know what’s going on in his mind?

But wait... there's more!

Heading to Atlanta

I'll be in Atlanta next week from Sunday night until Friday night. I'm teaching a Linux course for Guru Labs. They called me about it last night.

More snow today. I dare say it feels like we've seen more snow this last week than we saw all last Winter. If the weather keeps this up, we're looking at definite drought relief in the state of Utah.

I hope the weather lets up in the next week or so, though. Once we close on that house, I'm going to want to get up on the roof there and take the swamp cooler box out, repair the roof, and reshingle.

Still no word on exactly when we're closing. Still going with the Tue - Thur estimate we were given early last week. They could call at any time. Sleep with a pen in your hand.

Busyishness

I'm heading to Logan late tomorrow morning to meet with a client. Then, I'll probably be heading back there Friday afternoon to work on a big network wiring project Friday night and Saturday. I'll be staying over and coming back Saturday when we're done.

Sometimes, I wish I had an airplane and a pilots license.

Quick update: I'm told Smoochy* packed his and Jennie's computers, some toiletries, and some clothes in his Jeep this morning and left.

The answer to the question on everyone's minds is, most definitely, “Yes, things CAN get worse... much worse.”

Multiplicity of Hecticity

You know, the last couple of days, things between Smoochy* and Jennie haven't been good... but they haven't been bad either. They've been doing stuff together like going out to eat, watching TV and movies, etc. If they could keep that up, maybe they could work stuff out.

Unfortunately, that was just the calm before the storm. And — more unfortunately — Christine and I got caught up in the storm.

We all went to church today. I was surprised Smoochy* attended since he's been missing Sunday church meetings for the last couple of weeks. I thought maybe, just maybe, just possibly there might be an upswing in things ahead.

Today was Fast Sunday, so we attended testimony meeting. Jennie was one of the first in the congregation to get up and bear her testimony. She was sweet and expressed her thanks to Christine and I and our children for being in her life. Smoochy* sat with his elbows on his knees staring at the floor between his shoes.

After we came home, I called my mom and she invited us to dinner. I asked her if we could invite Smoochy* and Jennie. She said that was fine so I let them know they were invited. Smoochy* declined saying he was fasting, adding “you're supposed to fast for 24 hours.” Jennie said she'd come anyway.

After dinner, we went back home around 8:30. I went into my office to work on some programming I'd been needing to work on and pretty much stayed there most of the evening except to put the girls in bed and to run to the grocery store around midnight for more sunflower seeds.

Sometime after 1 a.m., I was working on some Perl code with my headphones in when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Jennie in tears. She was nearly hysterical and told me she couldn't take it anymore. I asked her what happened. She told it was “more of the same” — that Smoochy* had told her she was crazy and that she wasn't living “in reality.”

I woke Christine up and told her what was going on. We sat down with Jennie in the basement family room and she told us Smoochy* wouldn't leave her alone wouldn't let her go to sleep. I don't remember all of what she said had happened, but it was clear Jennie was shook up and it probably wasn't a good idea for Smoochy* and Jennie to continue living together until they got some professional help.

I thought it would be a good idea to get Smoochy* out of the house for a while so Jennie could go to sleep so I went upstairs and asked Smoochy* to go to Dennys with me. He said he wasn't hungry. I asked to come anyway. He went into the bathroom for a while and then went into their bedroom, closed the door, and turned off the light.

I waited a couple minutes and then knocked on the door asking him how long it took to get his shoes on. He yelled through the door that he wasn't coming.

I was trying to keep my cool, but this was really getting stupid. I decided to disconnect Smoochy*'s computer and put it in my car. I did this to get him to come out of the bedroom. It worked. He came after me as I was locking the computer in my car. I asked him if he was ready to go to Dennys with me. He had no intention of going to Dennys with me.

At this point, I think I wasn't really even sure what I wanted to accomplish. Most of all, I wanted Smoochy* and Jennie to quit having these stupid episodes and get on with their lives whether that meant divorce or reconciliation. I suggested he leave. That was pointless. I tried asking Smoochy* what he was hoping to accomplish with his behavior, what his motivation was, because I was having trouble understanding. I asked him if he was purposely trying to make himself miserable. He said no, he wasn't. He told me he saw no reason to talk to me about anything since I was not a “registered counsellor.”

I won't mention the silly threats Smoochy* made at me because they were, well, silly.

The discussion Smoochy* and I were having was really going nowhere, as most discussions lately with Smoochy* go (or so I'm told. I've been avoiding him). So, finally, I just asked him if he could agree to not talk to Jennie about anything regarding their relationship, her alledged “issues”, etc. I told him he should treat her like a house-mate and nothing more and that I would talk to Jennie about doing the same. He said he would if I also promised not to talk to Jennie about anything.

I know Smoochy* feels threatened by Jennie talking to Christine and I, but I also know Christine and I are not exactly conspiring against Smoochy*. We just want Smoochy* and Jennie to work things out and until they work things out, we don't want Jennie to get hurt, physically or emotionally.

So, I told Smoochy* that Christine and I were trying to not give Jennie advice - that we were listening to her. Granted, we do give her some advice, but not mean-spirited advice.

So, I asked him again if he would agree to not talk to Jennie these things. He asked me if he would get his computer back. I told him I'd get his computer regardless of how he answered my question. He told me he would not agree to anything and he would not be coerced. I told him I wasn't trying to coerce him to agree- that I used the computer to “coerce” him out of his bedroom.

He made some more silly threats and continued to say he wouldn't agree to anything.

I changed my question to asking him if he could at least see the wisdom in what I was asking.

He wouldn't agree to that either.

Finally, I asked him if he would just promise not to talk to Jennie the rest of the night. He agreed to that.

Then I asked him if he'd let Jennie sleep in the bedroom and if he'd volunteer to sleep on the couch, as a gentleman. He said he wouldn't do that.

I got the computer and put it back in Smoochy*'s office. I went back downstairs and told Christine and Jennie what had happened. Jennie layed down on the recliner in the family room and Christine went to bed.

I had some mail to send, which I was hoping to send on the way to Dennys, so I went ahead and got in my car and headed to the post office. When I got back, Jennie and Christine were upstairs and going downstairs and Jennie was all upset again.

Christine said Smoochy* told her that he wanted us to move out immediately. Jennie said not to listen, that we could stay as long as we wanted.

So... here we are... It's nearly 5 a.m. I'm not sure what, if any, good was ensued. It may very well have been a mistake to talk to Smoochy*, but I do believe the best thing for Smoochy* and Jennie right now is simply not to talk to each other until they both cool down and probably not until they have some kind of professional mediation to help work things out.

I am concerned, however, the potential benefit of trying to set up this guideline of non-communication with Smoochy* may have been lost by the circumstances. He's obviously angry at me and Christine now, moreso than he was before.