Upon arriving back in Seattle, I had finally got around to buying a kazoo for myself to entertain Aviva last weekend. As I dropped it on the floor by mistake last evening, Aviva “scooted” towards it, and picked it up – turns out, she’s quite a natural kazoo player – who knew?

Here she is learning the kazoo:

http://www.facebook.com/v/181516132115

And here she is putting on quite a performance: (and yes, she’s starting to sit a little – can’t really hold it too well yet, so I am holding on to her feet in this video)

http://www.facebook.com/v/181516862115

(as always, you might need to view the actual post to see the video.)

I’ve been thinking about moving off of Spaces for a while, for a couple of reasons:

1. More flexibility in hosting (i.e. stats tracking, plugins, etc…)
2. A lot more theme choices
3. I wanted to host fully on my domain name, http://averbuch.net, rather than just having it as a redirect.
4. Microsoft locks down a bunch of functionality in the name of security, but this significantly impacts my ability to explore and play with various technologies.
5. I wanted a server to do some exploration with Ruby on Rails.

During the President’s Day holiday yesterday, I spent time exploring various hosting options, and ended up setting up a plan at http://hostingrails.com, which had the price I was looking for (including coupons), along with providing Ruby access, WordPress, ssh/shell access, and a bunch of other exploratory needs.

I’ve got the new site up, so I am going to switch everything over there; you’ll just need to switch over once, but don’t be surprised if I change the look and feel a bit over time as I explore various options and plugins.

My next post will describe how to get setup on the new server.

Greg mentioned us playing Careers this weekend, which has become Joelle and I’s favorite board game of choice recently.

Basically, we both had played a bunch growing up, and were looking for a copy at a couple of board game stores nearby. Turns out, they no longer make it, so before we turned to EBay, we realized that Joelle’s mother still had a 1958 edition in her linen closet; on her last trip out, she brought it over.

It’s amazing the difference in the world view of 1958; the careers people strive for are:

• Politics
• Hollywood
• Uranium Prospecting
• Moon Expedition (including being able to be the first man on the moon)
• Big Business
• Farming

But, having read the Wikipedia article on the game, it’s clear that the game only continued to get even more sexist over time; what were they thinking with this "For girls" version?:

The "careers" available to players of the game have changed over 50 years of new editions, reflecting changes in popular perceptions. For example, "Farming" became "Ecology" and "Uranium Prospecting" became "Computer Programming". In 1990 Parker released a new version "Careers for Girls", featuring careers such as "School Teacher", "Fashion Designer" and "Super Mom". The strategy aspects of the game were also greatly simplified. This is discussed in the BoardGameGeek discussion thread,"most condescending game ever".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careers_%28board_game%29

Even more so when you read some of the strategy differences detailed in the first post in the BoardGameGeek thread:

So, like, in the original Careers, there are these "Experience" cards you can get. To use them, you play them instead of rolling the die. This lets you
control what space you go to instead of going to a random space, and adds a substantial amount of strategy to the game.
Well, they removed those in "Careers for Girls". Apparently girls can’t handle strategy in games.
Also, in the original game, you got to decide on a secret distribution; this meant that everyone had their own customized goal, and it’s not as easy to tell who is closer to winning.
Well, they removed that in "Careers for Girls." Apparently all girls should share the same goals.
Oh, and there are the actual careers. First off, there
are six instead of eight. Apparently girls don’t have
as many career choices. Of the surviving careers:
"Politics" has become "Fashion Designer", because girls
shouldn’t go into politics.
"The Arts" has become "Rock Star". I guess girls don’t know what "The Arts" mean.
One of the careers is called "Animal Doctor".
Apparently girls wouldn’t know the word "veternarian".
Oh, and "Astronaut" is now called "Super Mom"!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/33357

While our version does have it’s sexist moments, (get a pretty secretary, gain happiness points, for example), they do try and be a bit ungendered – for example, the square where you can marry a prince is written as prince(ss). Apparently, we were more evolved as a people in 1958 than in 1990. Who knew?

Basically, we both had played a bunch growing up, and were looking for a copy at a couple of board game stores nearby. Turns out, they no longer make it, so before we turned to EBay, we realized that Joelle’s mother still had a 1958 edition in her linen closet; on her last trip out, she brought it over.

It’s amazing the difference in the world view of 1958; the careers people strive for are:

• Politics
• Hollywood
• Uranium Prospecting
• Moon Expedition (including being able to be the first man on the moon)
• Big Business
• Farming

But, having read the Wikipedia article on the game, it’s clear that the game only continued to get even more sexist over time; what were they thinking with this “For girls” version?:

The “careers” available to players of the game have changed over 50 years of new editions, reflecting changes in popular perceptions. For example, “Farming” became “Ecology” and “Uranium Prospecting” became “Computer Programming”. In 1990 Parker released a new version “Careers for Girls”, featuring careers such as “School Teacher”, “Fashion Designer” and “Super Mom”. The strategy aspects of the game were also greatly simplified. This is discussed in the BoardGameGeek discussion thread,”most condescending game ever“.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careers_%28board_game%29

Even more so when you read some of the strategy differences detailed in the first post in the BoardGameGeek thread:

So, like, in the original Careers, there are these “Experience” cards you can get. To use them, you play them instead of rolling the die. This lets you
control what space you go to instead of going to a random space, and adds a substantial amount of strategy to the game.
Well, they removed those in “Careers for Girls”. Apparently girls can’t handle strategy in games.
Also, in the original game, you got to decide on a secret distribution; this meant that everyone had their own customized goal, and it’s not as easy to tell who is closer to winning.
Well, they removed that in “Careers for Girls.” Apparently all girls should share the same goals.
Oh, and there are the actual careers. First off, there
are six instead of eight. Apparently girls don’t have
as many career choices. Of the surviving careers:
“Politics” has become “Fashion Designer”, because girls
shouldn’t go into politics.
“The Arts” has become “Rock Star”. I guess girls don’t know what “The Arts” mean.
One of the careers is called “Animal Doctor”.
Apparently girls wouldn’t know the word “veternarian”.
Oh, and “Astronaut” is now called “Super Mom”!

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/33357

While our version does have it’s sexist moments, (get a pretty secretary, gain happiness points, for example), they do try and be a bit ungendered – for example, the square where you can marry a prince is written as prince(ss). Apparently, we were more evolved as a people in 1958 than in 1990. Who knew?

I am no good at FreeCell. Never have been. My goal for the rest of the flight (or as long as the battery lasts) is to get better.

Solitaire, I can win that (on the PC) often enough. FreeCell – not at all. Is it even possible?

Frustrating. (Then again, I haven’t played it in years; just remembered it even existed).

Two stories about my car recently and interactions with AAA. They must think I am crazy.

1. My car is about 5 years old, and a few weeks ago, the car wouldn’t start, though it was sitting at home. As neither Joelle nor I had jumper cables (we do now), I called AAA over. An hour later they show up, and car still wouldn’t start. We waited another minute, and tried again – boom, it started. WHAAAT? Oh well, the AAA guy left on his merry way. (he did run a test and tell me I should probably replace the battery at some point soon, as it was at the end of it’s lifetime, and CCA or something like that was getting very low).
2. So I replace the battery (myself even, though I did have the Parts Plus guy standing over my shoulder telling me what to do ), and all was fine until late last week, when the car wouldn’t start again. Waiting until the weekend when I had time, Joelle and I couldn’t get the car started ourselves, so off I go to call AAA over. He gets there, and tries quite a few diagnostic attempts, failing each time (though the lights did turn on, as did the air, there was no starting). Finally, he decides we’ll need to tow it to the nearest service station. As he pulls out the towing gear, the guy gets in the car to get the car ready to push forward manually.

He immediately is able to start the car, as he yells – “Your car was still in drive. It won’t start unless it’s in park!” AAAHHH! – a) Why does my car let me pull the key out while it’s in drive? I feel like that is just a little dangerous… and b) I feel really stupid.

Probably the same reason caused the magical healing for #1. Oh well. At least I know what the issue is. And I am sure AAA thinks I am crazy!

Part 1, is as sometimes the case, is up at Greg’s blog, as he had a very similar experience to Joelle and I. We too went to go see a movie Saturday evening (No Reservations – review: entirely cheesy and predictable romantic comedy about chefs. The food looked and sounded great, and it was cute enough, but definitely no need to see it. As mindles fodder, it worked well). On the way home, I was just driving down Eastlake minding my own business when Joelle asked if I perhaps should be treating the lights as 4-way stops. Being very confused, we both realized that all of the power was out in the north end of Eastlake, but I hadn’t noticed it at all – the street was very void of traffic thankfully. As we continued down the street (driving safer now), it was a completely haphazard mess of power-on and power-off. A couple traffic lights were on, the rest were off. The Zoo and Pazzo’s had power, but Sitka and Spruce and Pomodoro’s did not and were closed. Serafina was dining by candlelight, and the Lake Union Cafe apparently had to end that night’s wedding early as people were streaming out.

We luckily had power, although across the street (and as it turns out, Greg and Clodagh as well) did not have power. Our cable (and thus internet) was out, so we were at a loss for figuring out what was going on.

We decided to walk down the street to ask people at places that were open, but all they knew was that power went out around 11 PM, but weren’t sure what caused it, etc…

Heading to bed, we awoke to still having power, but cable was still out. I called Comcast, but they just had an automated recording stating that they knew of the outage in our area and were working on it. "No need to stay on the line". Seatte City Light had no information on their automated number or (eventually when I got internet back at around 11:30 AM) on their website.

Anyone know more information? I can not find any info for the life of me online on what the cause was…

I’ve always wondered where all of those crazy videos of people dancing on YouTube actually come from. But I think I have a little bit more of an idea after an email we received this morning: Joelle’s cousin wanted to share a video with us of Joelle’s great-aunt and great-uncle, so she posted it up there. Makes sense, but for anyone else who views this, it’s just another one of those crazy dancing videos! It’s all a matter of perception I guess – pretty cute video though!

(This likely won’t show in RSS readers, so visit the page to see it).