Exsteaminate!

Take a look at Alex Holden's model of an awesome steam-powered Dalek:

He explains his method and his madness here: My Motley Meanderings - Exsteaminate!

Just two things:

1. Dalek bubble bath? At Woolworth's? The English are soooo cool.
2. Model engineering is a career path? Where do I sign up?

(I know I found this somewhere, but now I don't remember where)

Techcrunch: Can Google Trends Predict The Election?

An interesting analysis from Techcrunch: Can Google Trends Predict The Election?

If so, then right now Obama's chances look really good. In the state primaries that were used as predictors, searches spiked right before the elections, so we'll see how it looks come October.

More printables

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! Activities and Printables

Printable coloring pages featuring Wubbzy, Widget, and Walden. These were a HUGE hit with Borg Boy, who is just starting to enjoy using crayons.

We just discovered Nick Jr.'s Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! this week, and have successfully weaned Borg Boy from Playhouse Disney by capturing it on ReplayTV in the middle of the night, then playing it in the morning while we're getting dressed.

Printables

Oh, joy! After my earlier experience visiting other people's favorite blogs, I needed to find something like Dabbled to restore my faith in the Internet. I love printables (some of my favorites are here), and Dot offers a wonderful robo-spaceman Birthday Party Invite & Thank You Note under a Creative Commons license. I'm a big fan of the 80s-style robo-lettering, too.

Happy Convoymas!

Krupskaya at The Edit Barn has a great idea for celebrating the sixth of June, immortalized in the 1975 novelty hit "Convoy": McCallsday, or Convoymas.

I was a couple years older than Krupskaya in 1975, but the song always reminds me of traveling that summer from Tulsa to Tucson and back... and then back to Flagstaff in the fall, and back to Tulsa. Much of this trip was along Route 66 (or I-40, where it paralleled the Mother Road). Along the way, we had breakfast every morning at a chain called Hobo Joe's, where they served hot chocolate with whipped cream, even in the middle of the summer. On the second trip, we detoured to White Sands, and on to Carlsbad Caverns, on the way back to Tulsa. Whenever I hear "Convoy" I think of those trips. So happy Convoymas to all, and to all a good drive.

Summer is...

• Classic TV on basic cable.


• Science fiction. Lots of science fiction.


• Taking classes just for fun.


• Daiquiri Ice sherbet.


• Cicadas in the afternoon.


• Little powder-puffy mimosa flowers.


• Bell's. Dammit.


• Drive-in movies with a cooler full of Shasta.


• Garage sales.


• Well, baseball. Duh.

I can haz change?

Oh boy.

Now that I have so much access to Quantum Leap (all seasons, most episodes) via Netflix, I find that the episodes I find myself watching are the ones in which Sam leaps into a woman. Those really weren't my favorites in the first run; as long as he was leaping into the 50s or 60s, I was happy enough, and it used to bug me to watch him clomping around in high-heeled pumps with his chest hair poking out of the bodice of some dainty little piqué number. However, I think these days I'm seeking out those episodes because I can actually relate to Sam, uncomfortable in too-tight clothes and heels... trying to put his lipstick on right... figuring out how to act like one of the girls. I don't have trouble with the lipstick and heels, thanks to coming of age in the 80s and living in a dorm full of beauty pageant winners for several years (they were generous with the beauty tips). And I'm fine one-on-one with other women, usually. But put me in a room full of middle-class moms and their kids, and I feel like Sam: the clothes don't fit, I can't walk right, and I'm always saying things that betray my true identity—the identity that is so not a middle-class mom (MCM).

Before I had Borg Boy, most of my female friends were single or in committed, non-married relationships. Then one of my good friends, an engineer, got downsized out of her job, and within a year she was married, pregnant, and living in another state. Another, a programmer in Silicon Valley, sent me a birth announcement out of the blue, via email, to let me (and approximately 560 of her closest friends, apparently) know that she and some guy I'd never heard of were now the ecstatic parents of [insert generic Jane Austen heroine name here; everyone I knew who had a baby girl that year named her after a Jane Austen heroine]. I mention their career paths only to emphasize that these were ungirly, geeky women who somehow managed to make the leap that I have never been able to make—from geek grrl to MCM. None of my other geeky women friends have children, and they were almost all completely puzzled by my decision to have one. I think that's because none of them could even contemplate joining the ranks of the MCMs, whose seemingly inborn knowledge of things like How To Cut Grapes So That Toddlers Can't Choke On Them and How To Get Your Kid To Sit Still For Library Story Time is just a mystery to us.

Sam was always teaching someone in another era about women's rights, even in that RIDICULOUS episode where he leaped into Dr. Ruth and inadvertently advised a young woman named Anita that speaking up about sexual harassment was always the right thing to do. I know that my friends and I are extremely lucky to live in a time and a place in which we have a choice about these matters. To work in a traditionally male-dominated field, if that's where our interests lie. To get married or just live with somebody—or neither one. To have children, and to have just one or a whole passel of the little dears. But those of us who didn't necessarily grow up with the assumption that OF COURSE we'd have children someday also grew up with huge gaps in our knowledge of how children work... and how mothers do too.

The TBR list: Wicked Game

My To Be Read (TBR) list is already huge, but I add to it on a daily basis. Here's today's addition: Wicked Game, by Jeri Smith-Ready.

Let me just note that I hardly ever read vampire novels. I never got into Anne Rice, and I quit reading Laurell K. Hamilton after about the second one. I skipped Stephen King's vampire novel(s?), even though the one I can think of right off came out during the time that I was still reading King's books as soon as they hit the shelves of my local library (where I worked, so I usually got dibs). But the premise for this book—and the "Big Idea" behind it—are irresistible. I probably would not be interested in this book if I hadn't read the author's Big Idea; John Scalzi is doing a service not just to writers, but also to readers, with his Big Ideas posts.

Running on MP(3)

Via The Weight of the World: Podrunner is a free service—a particularly awesome-looking one—that lets you download workout music mixed to good tempos for walking, running, or interval training. I have GOT to try this!! Honestly, what's the point in having a Walkman phone if I don't use it to play music while working out?

The #1 Cause of Sleep Deprivation In My Household

From the incomparable xkcd, which actually got a writeup in the New York Times today. A couple of years ago, I would have said w00t!

Get off the Internet: words I wish would go away

Words I wish I could quit seeing on the Internet. Just two today, but I expect this will be a recurring post.

• The Interwebs. It's a combination of a George W. Bush gaffe and a geeky joke. The thing is, many of the people who use it haven't heard the "interweb" joke and don't know it's about them. They tack an "s" on the end to show that they don't like Bush (well, duh; neither do 71% of our fellow Americans). I can see using it sarcastically once or twice, but not making it your customary way of referring to the World Wide Web, as a lot of people have done.


• Staycation. Someone coined this term to describe staying at home instead of going on a vacation because of the sinking economy and the rising cost of gasoline. To those of us who don't make a habit of taking the kids to an expensive kid-related resort for a week every year, this is called "normal." But it's part of the news media's growing obsession with frugality, which I expect I will write about later.

I did WHAT?

Between my aging ReplayTV unit and the "play now" feature on Netflix, I can watch Quantum Leap at pretty much any time I want to. This makes me very happy, for some reason. But it's made me think of the thing that's always bugged me about the show (besides the entire final season): do the people Sam has leaped into have any idea what he's doing during the time he's in their place? When he leaps to someone else, are those people suddenly back in their bodies and their lives, with no memory of how they spent the last several days? That would be pretty bad, since Sam has usually done something completely life-changing while he was there, and it would suck to have no idea what happened.

Although it does explain a few things about Iran-Contra.

Lou and Lou safety violations

I have a love–hate relationship with The Disney Channel. I love some of the weekend stuff, especially the movies. However, I hate the morning programming. The Little Einsteins drives me absolutely up the wall. That horrible little blond girl is always flat. I can only assume it's on purpose; it's probably supposed to reassure kids who can't sing on pitch that they're still perfect, unique little snowflakes who shouldn't let their inability to sing keep them from doing it on national television, thereby ensuring the popularity of American Idol (and the Idol-based attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park). I also hate Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, with its contrived lessons and weird animation.

But most of all, I hate Lou and Lou: Safety Patrol. In addition to being smug, self-satisfied know-it-alls, Lou and Lou are often just WRONG. They issue pointless "safety violations" for things like their preteen sister Lulu singing along with her iPod (oh, wait: I'm sure it's a Mix Stick) in the car, because it might distract the driver. Like having the most annoying twins in the world sitting in the back spouting safety violations isn't distracting. And is nobody allowed to talk or listen to the radio in the car? Wow. They get my vote for Dreariest Family EVER.

That was in this morning's episode, wherein Lulu also gets a safety violation for not buckling up, so she buckles her lap belt. Apparently the twins aren't at all concerned about a related safety violation: Lulu is using a lap belt alone, without a shoulder belt. Using a lap belt alone is NOT safe; in an accident, you need a shoulder belt too, to prevent head, neck, and abdominal injuries. In front-impact and rear-impact crashes, shoulder/lap belts are considerably more effective than lap belts alone in preventing fatality. Note that the statistics I just linked to are for outboard seats; Lulu is sitting in a center seat (and apparently in a booster). But since 2004, vehicles like the one Lou, Lou, and Lulu's parents own (a minivan) have been required to have lap/shoulder belts in the center back seat. As a frugal person, I don't necessarily recommend going out and buying a new car every couple of years, but seriously, those kids' parents are so obsessed with safety that I would think they'd want to, now that Lulu is old enough to ride in a booster instead of a car seat with a harness.

At least Dad gets a safety violation for talking on the cell phone while driving. I guess that would violate the "no talking in the car" rule.

[EDIT: Yes, I know I could just turn off the TV. But that would mean I'd have to actually play with the child instead of using the 7:30–8:00 time slot for reading my RSS feeds, checking my email, and updating my Facebook status. I suppose I could change the channel over to Sprout, at least.]

WTF?

I had to have the screen replaced on my nearly brand-new laptop a couple of weeks ago. Actually, it got broken in January, in a toddler-related incident: Borg Boy and I decided to dance to the sappy children's music on the television, and I left my shiny two-month-old Vaio on the footstool. Unfortunately, the impact from our dancing on the wood floor made it vibrate right off the edge. Even more unfortunately, Acts of Barney are not covered by our renters' insurance.

Being the workaround maven that I am, I immediately hooked it up to the flat-screen Dell monitor that belonged to our desktop, and resumed working on it. Every once in a while, in a leap of enthusiasm, I would make a few phone calls with the intention of getting it fixed.

Three months and $300 later, I had a new screen on my laptop, and a Blue Screen of Death every so often. When I was finally able to copy fast enough to get the error from the BSOD (I know there used to be a way to make it pause there instead of restarting, but couldn't figure out how to do it in Vista), I Googled it and found out that it's probably a result of an incompatibility between the driver for the new screen and a recent Windows update... but since it hasn't happened since the last Windows update, I think it's probably no longer an issue. However, as of yesterday, I have a new problem. Every time I set the computer down, it makes its dock/undock sound, and I get a little balloon that tells me that my USB device could run faster... but there are no USB devices currently connected to the laptop. Weird. I think it's time for my tried-and-true troubleshooting technique: When in doubt, reboot.

The Obligatory Introduction and Welcome

Welcome to Stay-at-Home Geek. I'm an over-40 mother of a two-year-old, which is weird enough, but on top of that, I'm a former IT professional turned stay-at-home mom. In the niche-ified world in which we live, I think that puts me in a category with maybe three other people. In any event, it means that in order to meet other people in the same situation—which I'd like to do, because frankly, I'm going a little crazy—I have to go online. Which isn't a big deal for me, since I've been online since 1990, when the Internet was young and text-based.

So I guess that's what I'm doing. I've always been bad at this kind of introduction, and it's hard to concentrate with Handy Manny and his tools singing in the background, and my toddler, Borg Boy (formerly Borg Baby—you'll get The Origin of Borg Baby later) whining "Nooooooooo!" every time I turn the TV off or change the channel, and "Nooooooooo!" again if I turn it back on. So I will end here, and go get ready for my day.