Had a bit of an emergency this morning, but thank the Lord it was only excitement, not injury.

Irish Woman has today off from work, so she decided to take some pictures of Baby Bear. He has learned to pull himself up on things, and she was snapping a few pictures of him holding onto Little Bear’s desk chair in our living room.

Baby Bear noticed his teddy bear on the floor next to the chair, let go of the chair and fell backwards.

He landed on his butt, then flopped back further and knocked his head on the edge of the fireplace hearth.

Apparently much crying and screaming commenced.

I got the tearful phone call here at work, and we were off to the emergency room.

I got there to find Baby Bear with a lump and some scratches on the back of his head. But he felt well enough to smile and flirt with the nurse who was looking at him, so I knew he was OK. Irish Woman, on the other hand, took a lot of hugging and talking to calm down.

Baby Bear is fine. Just the first goose egg of many. Irish Woman has calmed down and is going to spend the rest of the day cuddling Baby Bear.

My mother was on a first name basis with the nurses at our local ER when we were growing up, and one of the nurses recognized us from when we were there with Junior Bear last year. Seems that making frequent use of emergency medicine is a family tradition.

Hat tip to Random Nuclear Strikes:

Yes, I know the pic doesn’t look good, but use the link to see it all.

I’ve been paying attention to the auto industry bailout debate. Like I said, I’m of two minds. But the manner in which the executives of the companies, the UAW leadership, and the congresstrolls who support them seems to be “If you don’t give us a ton of money, everyone in America will suffer”.

Don’t come to me with your hat in hand, and tell me that if I don’t make your payroll for you my life will be ruined. It’s just not a good way to approach me.

My work laptop recently bit the big one. I didn’t cry too much because it was getting kind of long in the tooth, and I was thinking of asking for an upgrade anyway.

Luckily, the technicians were able to get my email and documents off of the system, and the Linux virtual machine that I use to develop and support was recovered. Unfortunately, they only were able to recover a snapshot that’s about a month old.

A month ago I was thinking about working on a script to do something kind of hard. It took me until last week to get it working to the point that I was satisfied with it.

Did I mention that my VM’s backup was a month old?

So, I have my VM, but not the script that I worked for over 3 weeks on. I realized this the other day, and after half an hour of looking at every server I support trying to find a copy of the script, I had nothing but some scribbled notes to fall back on.

Some things will just make a grown man cry.

I started work on re-doing the script. Luckily, I was able to remember at least most of what I did, so it looked like it would only take a week or so to recreate my work.

Last night I was looking for a report on my thumb drive, and stumbled across an old copy of the script. It wasn’t debugged at all, but the base functionality was laid down. I know where my bugs are, so I should be able to get it working in a couple of hours.

Back your stuff up people. Get a drive and copy to it. Then safeguard that drive.

OK, this is the more later.

I’m not a Christmas person.

Haven’t been in my entire adult life.

I identify with the Grinch, even if he did wimp out there at the end.

I do all the religious things about Christmas, and I make sure I give a bit more to charity this time of year. I try to be pleasant to my friends and coworkers a bit more. And I of course indulge my children and wife a bit with treats and presents.

But I try to do all of those things throughout the year, even if I fail at it regularly.

I don’t buy the artificial cheerfulness that infects everyone during these times. I certainly don’t buy the “Peace on Earth, goodwill to men” bit while I’m watching the Lord of the Flies shopping experience on the evening news, or the latest “Kill them in the name of God / The children are all dieing because someone higher in society cut off the food” coverage from some third world craphole.

I’ve seen a lot of how badly people can treat each other, both here and abroad. I’ve heard the catch phrase “Make every day Christmas”. But it’s just a slogan, a marketing gimmick. Until people can act like they care that someone other then themselves lives or dies, I don’t buy the Christmas Spirit thing.

When we have food and clothes drives for the poor in June, and they’re well taken care of, don’t wish me a Merry Christmas.

Until parents stop beating their kids and each other during the rest of the year, don’t tell me how nice it is that Mom and Dad don’t fight over the holidays.

Until you understand that your kids need time with you doing something meaningful all year long, don’t tell me how great it is that you were able to score the latest electronic babysitter for them by pushing a grandmother and her walker out of the way at WallyWorld.

No, I’m not the best human being in the world, and I’m as guilty as the next guy when it comes to not loving my fellow man as I would like to be loved myself. But I at least recognize how hypocritical it is to mark off a few weeks during the winter where we have to at least act like we care about the rest of humanity.

So, to all of you out there, have a Merry Christmas. And while you’re at it, I wish you a good time throughout the rest of the year. I’ll try to do my part to help you along with that one.

Og over at Neanderpundit shares my view of Christmas: Warning! Strong Language Ahead!

Merry Christmas to every last one of you politically correct, worthless
XXXXX out there who have nothing better to do other than to waste
perfectly good oxygen and bitch about phrases like, ‘Merry Christmas, God Loves
you, and Napalm Sticks to Kids.’

More on this later.

Roberta X has a good post on dealing with chronic pain.

I’ve been creaky in one form or another since I was 19. When I was young, it was normally muscle soreness from physical exercise, leavened well with the occasional minor injury. I was never one of those “good hurt” types, and I’ve never had a runner’s high. Unless you count the feeling after a run that I might puke and then pass out. If that’s a runner’s high, you can keep it. I’d pop a few ibuprofen, stretch a bit, and get on with it.

When I got to be 26 or so, the pain started moving into my joints. Mostly my knees, but also my ankles, feet, and hands. Like an idiot, I just ignored it, changed over to naproxen, and got on with my life. Should have gone to the doctor, especially considering my families history with arthritis, but had to be a big man and show that I could take care of myself.

By the time I was 32, I was walking with a distinct limp sometimes. I was using Aleve every morning and every night. The Irish Woman and I had been together for a couple of years, and her mantra had become “Go to the doctor, go to the doctor….”. I finally went, with her in tow to make sure I actually kept the appointment.

And guess what? I had arthritis, and it was treatable. Doc put me on some anti-inflamatories, and I started doing better. I’ve been on about 6 different medications over the years, some pretty basic, and some kind of exotic. When the Irish Woman and I were trying to make Baby Bear, I came off all of it for about 2 years, and thankfully we were able to conceive before I had to go back on my meds.

Luckily, I’ve stayed away from the hardcore pain killers. Aleve isn’t cutting it anymore, but the Doc has me on something a bit more potent, but still not a narcotic.

My mother died from complications of Lupus after 20 years of high doses of prednisone and narcotics. It got to the point that she could pretty much get Demerol and Fenigren on demand at the local hospital. By the time I was an adult and had my first child, she was pretty much an addict and spend 3 days out of 5 in a fog.

I’m not going down like that. I may limp, I may need a cane when I’m older, but I’ll get old with a glint in my eye and all of my mental faculties.

Nowadays, I’m sore in a few areas all the time, but the treatments and medicine keep the edge off and keep me from growing fangs and claws during the course of my day.

Roberta X is spot on when she says that the pain becomes part of the background. If I concentrate on how cruddy I feel on bad days, nothing gets done. So I take my medicine, ignore it as much as I can, and know what my limitations are. If I spend a day lifting 200 pound servers with one of my guys, I know I’m not going to be in good shape the next day. So I make sure I have 2 or more guys to help move servers.

So, I get on with it, and remember that there are a lot of people who are worse off.

with balls this big?

BHO is buying his wife a $30k plus ring made from rhodium and diamonds during a time when most Americans are having to tighten their belts and worry about the future. The president elect is telling everyone that they need to be prepared to pay higher taxes in order to “spread the wealth” and that CEO’s should give up their bonuses and salaries for the good of the country. And he’s spending more than a lot of people make in a year on a piece of jewelry for his wife.

Pure chutzpah.

Yes, he should purchase nice things for his wife. Yes, she’s earned them by putting up with all of the garbage that a 2 year presidential campaign brings into her and her children’s lives.

But a ring made overseas from materials that most people haven’t even heard of?

The Irish Woman made an observation about this, and I think it makes sense to post it here. There’s a good chance that at least some of the diamonds in this bauble are blood diamonds mined by low paid or unpaid Africans. And the rhodium the ring is made of was probably mined in South Africa by low paid Africans. So the descendant of African slaves will be wearing an enormously expensive ring created from materials produced by Africans who are either worked as slaves or are paid slave wages.

Kind of ironic, dontcha think?

Come on, buy her a nice ring made from gold mined here in the United States, or at least made by a domestic company. We have wonderful jewelers here in America, and I’m sure you could find something a little less improper for your lady.

Football is one of my few vices.

I have always loved football. I enjoy it live and on the TV. I watch replays of classic games on ESPN and the NFL Network. I enjoy watching it alone, with my buddies, and with the family.

But something is starting to get to me, and that is nighttime NFL football.

When I was growing up, I could watch the first half of Monday Night Football and not feel like I’ve missed much when I headed to bed. It was only two quarters of football, and I’d watched two games on Sunday.

But now there are 3 games during prime time every week. Games played during prime time now occur on Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. That’s half of the professional football that’s broadcast. You get 3 games on two networks on Sunday, then the nighttime games. If you miss half of those games, that’s a huge percentage of the football you have available that you don’t watch.

The pregame show starts at about 8:30 for each of these where I live in the Eastern time zone, with kick off some 15 to 30 minutes later. Assuming that the game only lasts 3 hours, that means best case for the end of the game approaches midnight. For those of us who actually have families and jobs, that’s quite late. I get up at about 5 every morning, and if I show up for work 3 days out of 5 with only 4 or 5 hours of sleep, my boss is going to hurt me bad.

Why do these games start so late? I’ve heard the argument that they start so late on the East Coast so that they’re on during good times in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. But if a game starts at 9 in Louisville, it’s starting at 6 in Los Angeles. No way most people are home by 6 to watch a football game by 6 on a work day. In the Mountain and Central time zones, the time is a bit more reasonable, but that means that a large percentage of the audience probably misses at least part of the game.

How about this: Start the games at 7 PM in each of the time zones. Tape delay it for the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones. Yes, real-time video and game commentary will be available on the Internet, but I’d be willing to bet that a large majority of fans won’t cheat themselves by going that route. And if they do, who cares. Most people watch these games on their TV, so show them the game during a time frame that doesn’t force them to stay up way too late or rush home to watch the game.

I know, I’m getting old, and midnight isn’t that late. But 3 nights with reduced sleep is way too much to ask for football. And I can and do record the games so I can catch the second half later, but I shouldn’t have to, and I wouldn’t if the networks would just start showing these games at times that are more convenient to the consumer.

Our Thanksgiving went pretty well.

Girlie Bear spent the day with her mom and Little Bear, so it was me, Irish Woman, Junior Bear, and Baby Bear.

We started the day off making a turkey in the roaster and dressing. We had plans to have dinner with friends later in the afternoon after we’d visited the Kentucky family.

We made an appearance with the Kentucky family, and Baby Bear was the hit of the show. He’s really become a little guy instead of just furniture that burps, and he was in great form. We saw one of the cousins who had a baby 3 months ago, and their little guy is as cute as a button.

We left there, went back to the house, and grabbed our vittles for dinner. When we got to our friend’s house for the party, most of the crowd was already there. Both Irish Woman and I were both on pager for the weekend, so no drinking allowed, but it’s kind of fun to be the sober one in a room full of people who have a good buzz on. Not drunk and loud, just mellow.

My turkey was a hit, and the dressing was eaten up and the pan scraped clean. There were about 6 teenage boys and 3 teenage girls, so not much was left over.

Friday we had Girlie Bear back, so we had our family Thanksgiving at home. Girlie Bear helped me bake the pumpkin pies, and we made another turkey. After dinner, Girlie Bear went back to her mom’s for the weekend.

Saturday we went to the Thanksgiving celebration with the Indiana family. More turkey, and a great time with a loud, close, fun group of people. Baby Bear was held by everyone, and ended up falling asleep for the night in one of the aunts arms.

Sunday was cleanup and relax day at Casa de Oso. My pager went off regularly all weekend, but nothing major happened.

We ate the last of our leftovers tonight, and I think I’ll make something entirely unlike turkey for dinner tomorrow. 3 turkey dinners in 4 days, with leftovers for every other meal besides breakfast gets old.

I hope everyone had a fun, safe, and memorable time.

No headache today, and I was able to get out of bed without too much groaning.

My attitude is a bit better than it was yesterday, and I didn’t even have to drive out of my way so that I didn’t see a coffee shop on the way in.

I might just be coming out of this.