Today was a nice lazy day around the house. To pass the time Jacob asked if he could do puzzles. He did 5 or 6 different puzzles. He’s like puzzles for a long time, but lately he hasn’t been doing them. It was great to see that he could still put them together without help.
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Filed under: Fatherhood, Project 365
After a long week, tonight was family night. We shared a pizza and wings dinner with Nan, before Jacob and I disappeared upstairs to ‘Do Something Different with the Train set.’. It was a nice relaxing evening, it was Jacob’s choice to play with his train set. It was nice to have a night that was just the 2 of use playing in his room. It’s these moments that I really enjoy as a dad. Perhaps tomorrow will be the day to turn our freezer box into a fort.
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Filed under: Fatherhood, Project 365
Today at work I snapped a picture of my coffee mug. It’ just seemed that after all the drama of the last week it would be nice to just relax with a cup of coffee and what better cup to use then my work cup. The picture is from Jacobs first Christmas. Lynn and Dan gave me the mug as a Christmas gift and I treasure it. I’ve been thinking of finding or taking one of both of the kids and getting a new mug, but till I do I see Jacob’s smiling face every morning when I enjoy a much-needed cup of coffee at work.
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Filed under: Fatherhood, Project 365
Today we have a bit of a departure from my usual 365 posts. Here are my photos for the last three days. I spent the last couple of days at the hospital with our oldest child as he was treated for an asthma attack. Due to being between working cell phones, for much of the last few days I was unable to connect to the internet. So here they are each with their own write-up.
Taken our first night in the ER. It was the first of many treatments to get his Asthma under control. Around 11:30 we were told that they wanted to admit him. It wasn’t until 6pm the next day that we got into a room.
Our second night at the hospital, we’d finally got a room and the asthma was mostly under control. We were there primarily for monitoring. I tried to get a picture of the room, but I was using a cellphone camera and it didn’t turn out.
I took today’s picture when I returned to the hospital to take back the incorrect discharge and prescription that I was given when we left earlier in the afternoon. I took the picture of the ambulance in memory of how we got to the hospital the first night.
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Filed under: Family, Fatherhood, Project 365
Last night was a long night and unfortunately it didn’t end when the sun came up. I would love to go into all the details today but circumstances are preventing that from happening, for now here are view of the highlights.
Jacob was taken to the hospital because of an asthma attack and unlike earlier hospital trips, this tim the treatments did not do anything more than offer temporary help with his breathing. So after hours in the ER the doctor wanted to admit him for treatment and observation. So, last night I left Jacob at the hospital with mommy and took violet home for the night. In the morning I left Violet with my mom and headed to the hospital to relieve Melissa. After a day of treatments, and waiting in the ER for a bed to become available we finally got a room in the pediatric ward.
So, now I sit in his room spending time with Violet, Melissa, and Lynn hand writing out tonight’s post because we disabled the data plans on our malfunctioning cell phones last week. I have taken my project 365 photos and with a bit of luck, I’ll be able to get home tomorrow night with Jacob to post them and hopefully do a better update about our experience over the last few days.
When After the Deadline was first released for Firefox in the beginning of February, I thought it looked interesting. So I installed the Extension to see how it would hold up to day-to-day use. In the 3 weeks that have followed it’s become integrated with my day-to-day work flow. I even find myself taking chunks of text from desktop applications and coping them into a web form so I can use it. Of course if you’ve never heard of After the Deadline you are wondering what I’m talking about.
After the Deadline is an open source server software that provides spelling, style, and grammar checking. The service is free for personal use, and commercial users can run their own server. It has an open API so Plug-ins can be developed to integrate its functionality into almost any application. Right now I’m running both the Firefox Extension and the WordPress Plugin. It’s moved me out of Microsoft’s Live Writer for writing my posts because I want to use it to check my writing. I’m thinking that it might be an interesting exercise to try to write an After the Deadline plug-in for Live Writer, though after using the built-in editor in WordPress for the last few weeks, I’m wondering if it’s worth it. Perhaps I should move to the web for my writing.
What makes this different from most spell checkers is that it’s very context aware and so it can spot the wrong use of words like ‘meat’ and ‘meet’ or ‘know’ and ‘no’. This is one of my biggest issues when writing, I spell the word right, it’s just the wrong word. Another great feature is that when it shows you your errors it has an option to see an explanation. For example this last sentence I had a hidden Verb, I had know idea what that was but a quick check of the explanation and now I do:
Though as with all automated checkers it’s not right 100% of the time, I’ve found it right most of the time. Add to that the ability to prompt you when you are submitting a form without running a check, makes it a great tool if you do any writing online.
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- After the Deadline Brings Better Grammar and Spellchecking to Firefox, and It’s Awesome [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)
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Filed under: Cloud Gazing, Geeky, Software I use
Recently during meals Violet has asserted her independents . She is happiest when we let her feed herself. Of course we still sit there and help her, but she’s getting to the point were that is not needed. Of course she still hasn’t worked out how to use the spoon but she’s trying.
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Filed under: Fatherhood, Project 365
Today after returning from my suit fitting, I packed the family in the car and headed out. After strapping our to bundles of Joy in, I couldn’t help but snap this picture. At the time I opened the door and took a second picture. Thinking that the reflection would ruin this one, but when I pulled the different shots up on the computer It was the best one. The reflection adds a bit of depth to the shot, it also show that I took this with one of our cell phones.
A while back Melissa and I turned an old water bottle into a Change Jar. We try to put our loose change in there every night. We’re hoping to fill it up and use the money for something special for the family, like a trip. Recently Violet has found it and her new game is to put what ever she can find that fits down into the bottle. Last week I fished out the toy spoon she got with her dolls, plus assorted odds and ends. I could be upset but it’s not that big a whole and she’s shown great hand eye coordination to fit some of the things into it. Who needs a shape sorter when you have a water jug.
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Filed under: Family, Project 365
Today I was a spent the evening providing a cousin tech-support. It seems she got tricked into downloading Security Tool. A fake anti-virus that holds your computer hostage unless you register it. It took a few hours but I cleaned up her system and took the opportunity to install a better browser.
Sorry about the low quality of the picture today. I am have some technical difficulties with my cameras. Should be cleared up by tomorrow.
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Filed under: Geeky, Project 365
