Binary in an Analog World

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open the book to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"Sometimes this is natural and clear; at other times it can cryptic."

The C Programming Language, Second Edition
by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie.
Prentice Hall, Inc., 1988.
ISBN 0-13-110362-8

* Thanks to a sweet doublet made by theblueleader, I now don't look like a scrub. Photographic evidence:
( Read more... )

* I was given the The William Blackfox Website Awards, Best Overall Website for my work on the Atlantian Rapier website.

* Four of my five children are in school this year. My wife starts her celebration soon.

* The banner that lisettelaroux and I made got an squeees, which was the expected outcome.
( Read more... )

Questions from the Pink Leader:

1. Why the bunny?

So, Kynny said my arms should be something that should represent me. I'm very "right or wrong", "yes or no", "black or white". Hense... the colors.

The bunny is in reference to my tons of kids. "You guys are breeding like rabbits." A rampant rabbit was as close as I could get without triggering the "Bimbo Afronte" response.

2. Have you gotten a replacement for the totaled RX-8 yet, and if so what?

Yes. A Volvo C30. Its a two-door sporty hatchback. It has more power and its more comfortable, but not as fun to drive because its front-wheel drive.

3. If Liam had been a girl, what Irish name would she have been given?

Not all of the kids have Irish names.

4. How did you and Carrie Ann meet, and given both of your pasts, what signaled that this time it was the real thing?

A single parent social network. We were both sorta flailing around with little to no social interaction. Its very hard to go out on a date with an infant. It didn't start as dating initially, mostly it was nice to talk to someone that was going through similar issues. Everything felt right very early on, even though we were both trying to not fall for the other, well... we did.

5. If, at the next event, you could only fight one person, who would it be and why?

Laura, after having put in biomechanical arms so she can stand to hold a sword for longer than a few minutes. The last time we fought, I saw the glimmer of the angel of death. Damn our bodies preventing us from doing what we want.

I'd like to fight more of the "old guard". Padraig, Sir Daemon, Niall... etc. I have been able to fight a number of the original rapier folks thanks to Gardiner's Companee. There is so much focus on "win win win" with some the younger crowd that I get bored, regardless of the outcome. The fights are not fun. When I have fought Alan, Jimmy, or Robert, or Gerlach, the fights were fun.

The best fight I've had in quite some time was with Alice at the recent Sapphire Joust. She chose to fight left-handed like me because of my injury. It was the first time I walked away from the field with my opponent by my side, laughing so hard my sides hurt. It was pure bliss.

I want more of that.

My first time acting as a sheep:

Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

These questions are from Belfebe:
1. How has parenthood changed you?

Just parenthood, not that much. My mom has done home-daycare since I was a toddler. I grew up surrounded by little kids. People always ask "How do you deal with 5 kids?". Except for the cleaning & scheduling, 5 kids is easier than 1. Built-in playmates are a godsend. The great short horde is a "yours, mine, and ours" set. I have two by blood, five by love.

2. What has been the biggest challenge you have ever changed?

Being a single dad. I was the primary care giver for child #4 for multiple years, starting at 1 year old. His mom and I separated not long after his 1 year birthday. I went from being extremely work focused (80+ hours a week), to focusing on very little but my son. I lost over 30 lbs during that period of time. Of course, I've gained nearly all of it back since getting remarried.

Being a single parent is rough. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

3. If you could go back in time, is there anything you would like to tell your younger self?

In order:
a) Being right isn't always right.
b) Never intermingle friendship and money.
c) Work to live, not live to work.

4. Have you ever considered a career in piracy?

Yes. I was my dad's movie going partner growing up. My mom hates movie theaters. We saw every shoot-em-up, war, spy, drug dealer movie that came out from the time I was 4 until I left for college. On the way home, we always critiqued the movie from a "what did the bad guys do wrong" point of view. We discussed what they could have done better, how they could have avoided getting caught, what the good guys should have picked up on and didn't...

My dad always said I was either going to be a Spook or a member of a Cartel. I've held a security clearance, worked indirectly for multiple spook agencies, and will probably end up doing it again after I get tired of startup life. I like to think of it as I was a spook that got paid better. :)

5. How did you and your wife meet?

My wife is (was?) a widower, I'm a divorcee. We were both primary care givers to our kids. We met through a single parent social network.

My children are all taking dance this year, even the boys. They enjoy it so I'm happy. At least that was the case until I sat down and listened to the songs they were dancing to. The song in question is Greased Lightning, from the 70s movie Grease. You know the song, "Why this car is automatic, It's systematic, It's hydromatic, It's Greased Lightning!"

The song starts out alright enough, but mid-way through I look at my wife and ask "Did they just say what I think they said?" Another round through the chorus and I stop the CD so I can rewind and verify that I'm not going crazy.

Check out these choice quotes that my 5 year olds are to sing along with:

"You know that ain't no shit we'll be getting lots of tit In Grease Lightning"

"You are supreme the chicks'll cream for grease lightning"

"With new pistons, plugs, and shocks I can get off my rocks You know that I ain't bragging she's a real pussy wagon Grease lightning"

Its been a few days, so this is from memory, which isn't so good these days.

( Alan )

( Freddy )

( Alan (C&T) )

( Roland (C&T) )

( Alice )

Kingdom Crusades was a ton of fun. The fighting started with a populace tourney, followed by a champion's tourney, then a melee, then a champions melee, then an open list. I was asked earlier this week to be on the Champion's team, and I was nervous for a while. I've never had others rely on my fighting, so this was a first.
( Polulace Tourney )
( Champion's Tourney )
( Melees )
( Marshals Court )
( Active Marshaling Sucks )

New people - The new people (Joe & Rebecca) were back. I worked with them on basic footwork & bladework. They are coming along pretty good. Master Robert took over for me, which let me get quite a bit more fighting in this week than last week. I'm pretty happy with their progress.

lisettelaroux - Working on her confidence issues still. We fought for a while, working on a number of different things, and she seemed to have fun at the end. Lisette got very frustrated with me at one point because she did what she was told and it didn't work as well as she wanted. attack_laurel made the suggestion to to Lisette to think less, which worked *really* well. Following Sir Corby's suggestions, instead of slowing my fight down, I worked on shots & footwork that I am less comfortable with. Hopefully, this makes it so both Lisette and I gain from the fighting.

Alice - I've noticed that none of her closing shots are actually threatening. Flat out ignoring them works just fine, since I know she is going to do something different when she actually throws a "real" shot. As such, she is using far more energy than I am, and I have the advanced knowledge of where she is likely going to be. I had a hard time pulling my shots because she was closing very fast, far faster than usual tonight. After the forth stiff shot in a row, I sat myself, even though she wasn't concerned at all. I don't like hitting hard, even if it didn't hurt & was an accident.

rolanddem - I tried to not let him control the range & tempo, which worked out better than it had in the past. He was using his monster sword, which required massive amounts of work on my part when using my 40". I switched to my 30 and was able to control his sword better. I need to work on owning the fight with Roland. When I take tempo & control range, it works FAR better. Easier said than done, and I'm willing to bet he knows most all of my tells by now...

Alan - Ah, Alan. We had the floor to ourselves, so I tried moving. As much as I could, I didn't fight linearly. I had a number of nice off angle shots, including a favorite of Alan's, the rising cross shot while dropping back. My "line" defense is decent. My linear shots are pretty accurate. However, Alan won't let me fight there. So, I need to continue working on non-linear fighting.

I have been quite sick for the last few days. I left work early on Thursday with a 103 degree fever. Of course, it has rotated through the rest of the family since then, which made this weekend oh so awesome. I've been unable to sleep much, rotating through the chills & then drenched in sweat and back for two days does that to ya. I was not able to concentrate for that long, so working on the site I promised rolanddem a while ago is out, and so is trying to teach myself to sew. (Kinda hard to sew if you soak the fabric in the process)

But I can browse the web. Its better than watching the infomercials that are on every channel at 3:37 in the morning.

I started out with reading up on Walsingham, since the book pinkleader gave me is interesting, but is rather dry. (Best taken in short stints... and not while sick, hard to concentrate) Well, that lead me to the Gunpowder Plot Society where I read more about Guy Fawkes. Which, btw, is a rather interesting plot that might have almost worked. The primary sources available on the GPS site discussing the investigation & interrogation of Fawkes is pretty interesting...

Anyways, that lead me to the ECW, which lead me to the ECW re-enactors in the states.

That looked kinda interesting. So, I went about reading on one of the sites about how to become a musketeer. And of course, that is where I came across this:

"buy your own so that you can spend those cold winter evenings when there aren't any battles polishing and rubbing down your barrel, lubricating your ramrod and waxing your butt"

Yes, re-enactors are weird.

Today, we had two new people come to practice. I worked with them for a while on the basics. We've had a ton of new people coming to practice lately. Thats great, I'm glad to have new blood. More people to fight the better. Only downside is I don't get to fight as much as I would like. This week, I got in two fights.

My first fight was with Sir Vlad, who has a great control of range. I was alright if I could keep him at *my* preferred range, but he's pretty good at putting me in position to make it hard to keep that up. He's not a knight for being good at knitting, thats for sure. :)

My second fight was Cut & Thrust with Master Alan. We fought for what seemed like a half hour, but was probably much less time. I was completely exhausted after fighting him. I worked *way* harder fighting him than I have in quite some time. I did quite a bit better than last time, but I still have quite a ways to go.

Two things I need to do:
1) I need to make a mask insert similar to Jimmy's so I can fight C&T before geting a helm.
2) I need to start some pell work. My muscles are seriously not used to the motions (both with good form, and my very poor form).