Here I am at Hopper Dorm waiting on a pizza and for tomorrow to be over so I can go see my baby. It’s been a hard week and I’m almost finished with the Generation video. I’ve finished editing it; I am now adding titles. For the geeks in the audience, I had to fight Tiger and Motion 1.0.1. Lots of fun, I assure you. Everything works now and when I return from my short trip home, I’ll have something to post.
Stay tuned,
B.

Well, I’m sure some of you might be wondering what I think about all of this. Unfortunately, I can’t really speak to it except it feels like a scene in Empire Strikes Back. I don’t really understand what are the salient differences between RISC and x86. I know the old party line on the subject: RISC => more instructions per cycle. I guess I’ll have to learn to say ‘Intel => more power per watt’. Whatever. I can’t say I’m ready to move to Windows (I use Windows almost every day testing web sites). I don’t know. I guess it’s like the Woz told me in an email about the death of the OS 9 desktop metaphor: we’ll just have to wait and see what they do. There are lots and lots of unanswered questions.
In other news, I’m headed down to GHP tomorrow. I’m having trouble getting motivated to finish packing. My kids seem eager and excited, and I’m excited too; it’s just going to be hard to be separated from Tess; even though I’ll see her every week. I’m not looking forward to that aspect of it. At any rate, I need to get back to packing.
Oh, one more thing….
I got the job!!!!! Woooo Hooooooo!
more on that to follow…

Thank goodness for Ryan and all the good people at Other World Computing! Because of their hard work, I’m typing on my front porch on my Daystar G4 enhanced Lombard running 10.4 Tiger! Woo Hoo! I couldn’t be happier! It runs a little slowish, but I’m not going to complain. I’m testing battery life now and it looks like Tiger’s a little hungrier. I haven’t applied any software updates, other than the 1.0.4 version of IOXPERTS 802.11b driver. Now, if only some brilliant soul can come up with a way to get the DVD player to work in 10. I’ve certainly learned to live without it.
Some of my students have found their way to my website and I look forward to meeting the rest of my folks soon. It’s going to be another interesting summer. I do wish I had more money to hire more guests for them. One can hope. More to follow…

Only one more week before I leave for GHP! I’m looking forward to meeting all my new people. I hope things are better in the Old Gym. Zanne’s warning, “Many tears have been shead for answered prayers”, is still sounding in my ears.
Tess has been helping out around the house. She’s able to give Jake his treat (scary, no?). She’s experimenting with phonation, (sorry, Dad. – I mistook his use of the word phoneme and thought I had him. Rats!) She’s having fun with bah, dah, and mah. Sometimes we’ll hear a UMMMMMM. It’s fun.
— Tam’s returned, meaning I’m back on baby duty! —
Here’s a Tess picture for the day,
Am I the only one that sees a resemblance?

 

   Well, here I sit on the side porch at 243. I’m stuck down here until tomorrow afternoon; the Beetle’s getting a new timing belt (as always, your generous donation to the Benjamin Westafer Benevolent Society is greatly appreciated). Meanwhile I’ve been trying to solve the Mystery of the Missing Marley. I have a feeling that I’ve found the answer. It’s taken all day, but apparently it’s been living in the wharehouse of the Golden Harvest Food Bank. I need to get my hands on it pronto for Heather.
   I’ve got the baby with me. Actually, Tam’s folks have her right now. They’ve just returned from Vegas. It’s a big night for Tam. The Board of the Gainesville Ballet is meeting in special session to discuss? Who knows?
   I’m getting ready to head down to GHP. I’ll be sending out letters to my students soon. It looks like I’ll actually have some guys this summer! I’m not going to hold my breath. Hopefully, I’ll have a better idea soon.
   What else? I’m fighting ActionScript 2.0. I want to do something that I think should be terribly easy, and yet I can’t make it work. If I can’t solve the problem soon, I’m going to have to do it the old, inefficient way. Susan’s going to kill me if I don’t. One interesting thing I have learned in connection with Susan’s site is a little more VBScript. I used php before, but since the site is hosted on IIS, I’ve converted everything to .asp. I should mention that I recieved lots of help from Will and Tony. On the php front. I’m battling the upgrade to the latest phpBB. I’ve lost the ability to access my admin control panel. I’m not the only one, but none of the solutions listed in the forum seem to be of any help. At some point I’ll have to fix that as I want to have the GHP ’05 forum up before I send out letters to the kids.
I have fingers crossed, wood knocked, and prayers said for an exciting and most challenging potential job. I won’t know anything for another week, so I’ll have to keep everyone in suspense. You’ll hear it here first.
Stay tuned…
P.S. Here’s a picture of me and Tess at the piano. Do I always look stoned?!

Ok, one more:

As promised, here’s Tess with a very famous ballet person:

Tam and I stopped by Dance Theatre to have lunch with Nate and see everybody. It just so happens that Alonzo King was there working on his new piece, “Salt.” So, of course, I had to get the photo-op. 🙂 Tam and I are hoping to get back up next week to see the show. It will be interesting seeing a different group up there doing Alonzo’s work. From what I saw, it will rock. BTW, you can buy tickets here, the name of the show is World Beat.
We’re in our room in Durham now. Tess is finally starting to slow down. Her teeth are really hurting her. We’re trying all types of things to help her; but, until there’s baby morphine, all we can do is mitigate her suffering. – I’ll have to take a picture of what I call, “the terrible face”. It’s heartbreaking! – Tam’s putting the finishing touches on the final meal of the day for Tess now. Looks like Tess is about to pass out. That’s my cue to get my schoolwork done.
B.

We’re leaving early tomorrow for SERBA. This will be (hopefully) one of my last perforances as a ballet dancer. I have been attempting to quit for about three years now.
“Every time I try to get out; they keep pulling me back in.”
I’m looking forward to seeing some familiar faces at festival and cribbing some moves from the teachers there. Tess will be accompanying us, so expect more pictures of her with famous ballet folk. 😉
B.

Tess and I were in the Apple Store at Lenox Mall yesterday. Wouldn’t you know that the annoucement came this morning. Also, it looks like my Lombard is finally out of spec. Guess I’ll have to get a new laptop. ;-). Just kidding, Tammy.
Tam and I went to the doc today to get Tam’s staples removed. Her doctor, one Pierpot “Pepper” Brown. He’s quite a character. He answered many questions including the method he used to reattach Tam’s colon; stainless steel staples! No more MRI for her (good point, Tony). Dr. Brown asked Tam if she was an athelete as she had, “twice the rectus abdominus muscle of the average male.” Impressive. She’s not to overexert herself for the next four weeks (unlikely), but has been cleared to drive.
Tess is doing well. She’s had her first small spoonfuls of rice cereal. She did eat some, but mainly made a mess. It was most amusing. She’s sleeping a lot lately. I suspect another growth spurt. She’s grabbing onto her stuffed animals and is vocalizing with more variety. I still can’t get her to repeat exact sounds to me, but she will follow my cadence; so we can have little ‘conversations’. I’m still giving her port de bras lessons every day, so look out! Tam and I are hoping to put together some video.
Meanwhile, I’m still in classes with the University of Phoenix Online and working through an ActionScript book; which is fun, if frustrating. I hope to have something to show for it in the near future; though I’m only on Chapter 3.
More to follow…

Tammy came home yesterday in the early AM. She’s doing well, but as stubborn as ever. Today I drove her to the office (she’s not allowed to drive for at least a week) she only wanted to do a ‘little work’. She stayed for about two and half hours…
Tam and I are watching “Eyes”. It’s not terrible. The characters are a little too flippant. Speaking of litotes, here’s a shout out to my Dad’s and his students that was on the NPR show Day to Day.
Tam’s going to bed. Looks like the Vicodin is working…
Tam says “to everyone who called and sent flowers to me I appreciate it very much. Your thoughts and prayers meant a lot to me.”
Back to the show for me and then I have to write a thousand words for my Philosophy class. I only looked at the assignment this morning. Hopefully, next week will be a less eventful.