Travis leaves elementary school

Travis gets emotional at his fifth grade graduation

Travis gets emotional at his fifth grade graduation


Yesterday was Travis’s 5th grade graduation ceremony. True to form, it was emotional for me and Kelly. Conn has been the only school he has known. He walked the halls long before he was enrolled there, tagging along with Hallie to and from school. Somehow time flew by and he has just one day left before he’s a middle schooler.

The ceremony included singing, photos from the students as babies, speeches, and plenty of awards. Travis took home a haul of these certificates. Indeed, we laughed when we looked at the “activities” page of the school yearbook and Travis’s face was in all but two pictures!
Continue reading →

Business Proposal—

Looks like I’ve struck it rich! I am so quitting my job! Easy street, here I come!!!11!

Reply-To: johnwan998789@yahoo.com.hk
From: “JOHN WAN” johnwan663@yahoo.com.hk
Subject: Business Proposal—
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 15:32:09 +0200

Dear friend,

I am John Wan from the bank of China, I have a business proposal involving the sum of $8,370,000.00 which is unclaimed as the deceased depositor died in testate with no surviving next of kin.

I will like you to work with me in total trust and partnership to enable me transfer the estate to you We will share the estate in the ratio 50% each.

I advise that you keep this email confidential and respond to me via my private email address: johnwan998789@yahoo.com.hk , I shall await your swift response to enable me inform you in details about this business.

Regards,

John.

Computer Space and the Dawn of the Arcade Video Game

Here’s a fascinating account of the creation of the first commercially-successful video game, Computer Space, and of the men who created it, Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell would go on to create Atari and, by extension, modern Silicon Valley.

Computer Space pitted a player-controlled rocket ship against two machine-controlled flying saucers in a space simulation set before a two-dimensional star field. The player controlled the rocket with four buttons: one for fire, which shoots a missile from the front of the rocket ship; two directional rotation buttons (to rotate the ship orientation clockwise or counterclockwise); and one for thrust, which propelled the ship in whichever direction it happened to be pointing. Think of Asteroids without the asteroids, and you should get the picture.

During play, two saucers would appear on the screen and shoot at the player while flying in a zig-zag formation.The player’s goal was to dodge the saucer fire and shoot the saucers.

Considering a game of this complexity playing out on a TV set, you might think that it was created as a sophisticated piece of software running on a computer. You’d think it, but you’d be wrong–and Bushnell wouldn’t blame you for the mistake. How he and Dabney managed to pull it off is a story of audacity, tenacity, and sheer force-of-will worthy of tech legend. This is how it happened.

Source: Computer Space and the Dawn of the Arcade Video Game

Top Female Lawyers Say They Are Treated Like Assistants at Work – Bloomberg Business

I disagree with this premise. My boss calls her colleague her “work husband.” In this case it means they work very well together.

I certainly don’t condone treating women like assistants but many men (like myself) hold their wives in very high regard and to be called a “work wife” does not necessarily mean they are seen as less than equals.

I have already provided my thoughts on equal pay, so I won’t even go there.

Litigators— lawyers who work to help clients win, or survive lawsuits—can have high-stakes careers. One female litigator’s job, however, came with a less thrilling description. “She had always been the self-appointed ‘detail-oriented task manager on the team, scheduling meetings, keeping the calendar and taking notes,’” wrote the author of a broad study on workplace inequality in law, released by American Lawyer magazine last week, about one of the lawyers who journalists interviewed. The lawyer’s male colleagues called her their “work wife.”

The “work wife” badge is a symbol of a culture in which women are seen as supporters of, rather than equal to, their male peers.

Source: Top Female Lawyers Say They Are Treated Like Assistants at Work – Bloomberg Business

Aeon: Why broken sleep is a golden time for creativity

Modern technology might have muddied the channels that connect us to our dreams and encouraged routines that are out of synch with our natural patterns, yet it can also lead us back. The industrial revolution flooded us with light, but the digital revolution might turn out to be far more sympathetic to the segmented sleeper.

Conn trip to DC

Kids-at-Lincoln-memorialSo over a month ago, I got to chaperone Travis and his fifth-grade buddies on a two-day trip to Washington, DC. Like the time I took Hallie two years ago, I had cleared my calendar for it and was greatly looking forward to it. I’ve always tried to be there with the kids for these special events and was going to do anything to go.

Initially, though, it seemed I would miss out. The night of the mandatory chaperone meeting at Conn Elementary, I had to give a pitch about the PTA at a Ligon event. I explained to Travis’s teacher that I desperately wanted to go but had an important obligation. To my dismay, she explained that this wasn’t possible – that there were already enough chaperones – and I was welcome to be placed on a waiting list if I chose.
Continue reading →

NC lawmakers move to make graffiti a felony

State lawmakers are moving to make repeat graffiti charges a felony. I have reported more graffiti in Raleigh than probably anyone (I am on a first-name basis with Raleigh’s graffiti team), however making graffiti a felony will not put the brakes on graffiti. It will, however, put more people in prison that honestly don’t need to be there.

As annoying as graffiti is, we do not need to make felons out of people for such a simple crime. A better approach would be to increase funding to the NCDOT and to municipalities to fund anti-graffiti efforts. That’s not seen as being “tough on crime,” though, and it also costs money. But hey, effective solutions sometimes require spending some money.

Graffiti vandals could land in prison under a bill, which received preliminary approve in the NC Senate, that would make repeatedly marking up buildings a felony.The state Senate gave preliminary approval in a 42-7 vote to a proposed law that expands and toughens graffiti penalties. A final vote is expected Wednesday in the Senate.

Current law covers statues, monuments and public buildings. Tagging public property is a Class 2 misdemeanor, with the stiffest penalty for five or more convictions two months in jail.

House Bill 552 would extend the protection to any property. The severity of the offense is stepped up to a Class 1 misdemeanor, with a minimum $500 mandatory fine.

Source: NC lawmakers move to make graffiti a felony

China’s little emperors – the children without siblings | Life and style | The Guardian

One day in October 2001, I made my way to Heathrow airport to pick up the son of a family friend. This was in the days before Chinese students had started coming in numbers to the UK and a tall, skinny Chinese youth standing at the airport exit was quite noticeable.

Du Zhuang, frail and as insubstantial as plasterboard, was pushing his suitcase with one hand, and holding his phone with the other. He was not looking around, but listening to the person on the other end with single-minded devotion. On his face was the serious, almost devout, expression of someone receiving an edict from the emperor.

It was only when I was standing right in front of him that he finally looked at me, and smiled. In those days, Chinese people did not hug or exchange pecks on the cheek, while shaking hands was for grownups only.Instead, Du Zhuang passed me his mobile phone, saying, “My mother’s been waiting to speak to you!”

Hearing her shout down the phone it was as though she had jumped out in front of me. I will never forget his mother’s first words that day: “Xinran, my son is in your hands now! Remember to help him to open his suitcase, he can’t do anything!”

Source: China’s little emperors – the children without siblings | Life and style | The Guardian

The Psychedelic Furs

The Psychedelic Furs play Raleigh's Lincoln Theatre.

The Psychedelic Furs play Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre.


Months ago, Kelly and I bought tickets when The Psychedelic Furs announced they’d be playing at Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre. Last night was that night and I was on Cloud Nine. Kelly was initially ambivalent about going but once the Furs took the stage she really got into it.

I made jokes on Twitter about being in an older crowd and, truly, it was a more mature crowd. Richard Butler and his bandmates didn’t slow down, though, as the Furs played the many hits they’ve racked up over the years. What a show! The faces may be older and there might be some new bandmates, but other than that it could’ve been a Furs show in their heyday.
Continue reading →

Another canceled credit card

We got an email from Chase.com earlier this evening, alerting us to fraudulent charges on our credit card. Someone has apparently programmed our credit card number onto another card and gone on a shopping spree.

It began with a swipe in a food vending machine owned by Berkshire Food, Inc. somewhere in Connecticut. Berkshire is in Danbury but there’s no way of knowing whether the transaction was there or the payment was processed there. The first tranaction was $1.60. I’ve heard that thieves will usually start off their spree with a small amount and increase as they gain confidence in their card.

Our thieves then began to get hungry, so they stopped into L.C. Chen’s, a Chinese restaurant in Fairfield, CT, at 6:19 PM. The two women bought Pad Thai and a drink, one signing the receipt as “Vanessa Smith,” according to Linda, the nice lady I spoke with.
Continue reading →