Monday, January 30, 2006
Sorry Paul
Paul didn't go to see Tristan and Isolde. It was just me, Tim, Jamie, and Caleb. Paul was at a different place.
Job Hazards
I should make another spin-off blog for work related injuries and incidents. Yesterday I was cleaning, caulking, and painting inside a bowl slide.
The bowl is like 10 ft. tall and 20 ft. across with a 6 ft. hole in the middle where you drop out into the pool (these measurements are just guesses, I don't really know exactly the height/width) . The pool was covered with planks and pallets so that we could walk around inside the bowl and walk up the sides and stuff. The sides aren't that steep - maybe like an 8/12 pitch or something until you hit the edge where it curves up into the wall of the bowl (It's really more like a shallow funnel shape).
We have a pair of suction cups that are designed for carrying large panes of glass. We use them for carrying fiberglass and for climbing around on fiberglass (like inside the bowl). They're really pretty cool. They have a thumb pump on the handle that creates a vacuum between the cup and the fiberglass and a button to release the suction when you're ready to take it off. You can get quite a bit of suction out of them so that they work very well for foot and hand holds on the fiberglass - as long as the seal doesn't leak, they could easily hold several hundred pounds. The only problem with them is that they don't work if the fiberglass is curved very much. They can handle a little curvature like on the base of the bowl (funnel shaped part).
So I had been using these suction cups to keep myself from sliding and falling down the bowl - the fiberglass was a little wet from some rain the day before, so it was slick. But then the sun came out and dried the glass off pretty well. Also, the reflection of the sun off the shiny fiberglass raised the temperature quite a bit. It was probably 60 deg. outside, but inside the bowl, in the sunny area, it was probably closer to 75 or 80 deg. So I was working in there barefoot (gives the best traction on dry fiberglass), and in a t-shirt.
As the fiberglass started to dry, I abandoned the suction cups because I could move around pretty good barefoot.
Then Pat, the other guy who was working there at the time (there was just the two of us) came in and he was cleaning off the lower section of the bowl that you can reach while standing on the pallets.
I was talking to him, working, and walking around the bowl. Then I walked onto the shaded side, which happens to be the side I started on before the sun came out to dry the glass. And because it was on the shaded side, it wasn't completely dry. I took a step and lost my footing - imagine trying to stand on an ice skating rink that's tilted to 30 deg. The whole panel was wet, so there is no way that I could stop myself. As soon as I lost my footing I yelled "I'm coming down!" Pat happened to be standing right at the bottom of the panel that I was surfing.
He didn't get out of the way. Just behind Pat was an Aluminum ladder. I think that he tried to catch me or something. So I tackled him into the ladder. My leg broke the slats on the pallet where it hit (they're some cheap junk that may break when you step on them). My face hit Pat's head. He twisted his thumb. I nearly split my lip (it's not as bad as I first thought that it would be).
Neither of us were hurt too much. I got back up there and my legs were a bit wobbly for a few minutes. I used the suction cups on the wet side after that.
The bowl is like 10 ft. tall and 20 ft. across with a 6 ft. hole in the middle where you drop out into the pool (these measurements are just guesses, I don't really know exactly the height/width) . The pool was covered with planks and pallets so that we could walk around inside the bowl and walk up the sides and stuff. The sides aren't that steep - maybe like an 8/12 pitch or something until you hit the edge where it curves up into the wall of the bowl (It's really more like a shallow funnel shape).
We have a pair of suction cups that are designed for carrying large panes of glass. We use them for carrying fiberglass and for climbing around on fiberglass (like inside the bowl). They're really pretty cool. They have a thumb pump on the handle that creates a vacuum between the cup and the fiberglass and a button to release the suction when you're ready to take it off. You can get quite a bit of suction out of them so that they work very well for foot and hand holds on the fiberglass - as long as the seal doesn't leak, they could easily hold several hundred pounds. The only problem with them is that they don't work if the fiberglass is curved very much. They can handle a little curvature like on the base of the bowl (funnel shaped part).
So I had been using these suction cups to keep myself from sliding and falling down the bowl - the fiberglass was a little wet from some rain the day before, so it was slick. But then the sun came out and dried the glass off pretty well. Also, the reflection of the sun off the shiny fiberglass raised the temperature quite a bit. It was probably 60 deg. outside, but inside the bowl, in the sunny area, it was probably closer to 75 or 80 deg. So I was working in there barefoot (gives the best traction on dry fiberglass), and in a t-shirt.
As the fiberglass started to dry, I abandoned the suction cups because I could move around pretty good barefoot.
Then Pat, the other guy who was working there at the time (there was just the two of us) came in and he was cleaning off the lower section of the bowl that you can reach while standing on the pallets.
I was talking to him, working, and walking around the bowl. Then I walked onto the shaded side, which happens to be the side I started on before the sun came out to dry the glass. And because it was on the shaded side, it wasn't completely dry. I took a step and lost my footing - imagine trying to stand on an ice skating rink that's tilted to 30 deg. The whole panel was wet, so there is no way that I could stop myself. As soon as I lost my footing I yelled "I'm coming down!" Pat happened to be standing right at the bottom of the panel that I was surfing.
He didn't get out of the way. Just behind Pat was an Aluminum ladder. I think that he tried to catch me or something. So I tackled him into the ladder. My leg broke the slats on the pallet where it hit (they're some cheap junk that may break when you step on them). My face hit Pat's head. He twisted his thumb. I nearly split my lip (it's not as bad as I first thought that it would be).
Neither of us were hurt too much. I got back up there and my legs were a bit wobbly for a few minutes. I used the suction cups on the wet side after that.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Another silly survey
Welcome to the 2006 edition of getting to know your friends or family. What you are supposed to do is copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new-mail that you'll send. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to a whole bunch of people including the person who sent it to you. Put your name in the subject line. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends, if you did not know them already.
- What time did you get up this morning? 7 am for work. Actually specifying a time that I get up is difficult - do you mean the time that I first wake up and start paying attention to the time, the time that I actually get out of bed, or the time that I am fully awake and functional?
- What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Tristan and Isolde - I went with Tim, Jamie, Paul, and Caleb. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be except for the historical and literary inaccuracy.
- What is your favorite TV show? I honestly don't watch any shows regularly.
- What did you have for breakfast? A few swigs of stale, flat Pepsi
- What is your middle name? Andrew
- What is your favorite cuisine? It's hard for me to pick favorites. I like Chinese egg rolls.
- What is your favorite Potato chip? I like Ketchup. A lot of people dislike Ketchup flavored potato chips, but I like them a lot. Of course, I only eat them a few times a year because they aren't widely available in the US.
- What is your favorite CD? I like Bach. I have a few Bach CD's - one that's played on period instruments and it's really good. I just bought some Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole cd's - he's a Hawaiian musician - kind of like the Hawaiian Elvis or something.
- What kind of car do you drive? White 2005 Ford Cargo (Work) Van. This new work van is nice because we can open the back doors from inside - in the old one, the guys in the back would have to be let out.
- What is your favorite sandwich? A really nice steak done medium-rare on two buttered slices of potato bread or some other suitable bread. When the steak juices completely saturate the bread there is nothing better.
- Favorite item of clothing? I don't wear nice clothes very much. Mostly my clothes are work clothes. I have some Carhart jeans that I really like.
- If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tahiti. If I ever go there, I might just stay there forever.
- What color is your bathroom? I mostly live in hotels. Hotel bathrooms are white
- Favorite brand of clothing? Carhart - they're a bit expensive for work clothes, but they last a lot longer than cheaper stuff. I'll have holes in a pair of Wal-Mart jeans in under a week.
- Where would you want to retire to? I don't know a specific location, but if it's not Tahiti, then it'll be some rural area near lots of woods, maybe some mountains, plenty of fresh air and hours from any major cities.
- Favorite time of day? It depends what I'm doing. On vacation, it would be after dark. I like to see the stars - and if it's cloudy and misty, that's nice too because I like the smell of rain and mist especially at night. On a work day it's probably the first few minutes of lunch break (when you can put your tools down and relax a little).
- Where were you born? Meadville, PA. My family has a long history in that town.
- Favorite sport to watch? I don't really watch sports, but Hockey is entertaining
- Coke or Pepsi? Cherry Coke
- Are you a morning person or night owl? I am a severe night owl.
- What size shoe do you wear? 11, but I can fit into a 10 1/2 wide (wide is not so common so I just get 11).
- Do you have pets? Well, there's this huge spider living in my shower, but I only see him when I'm home every few weeks.
- Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone? I got a raise. I might go to Jamaica in February/March
- Favorite Candy Bar? Baby Ruth
- What is your best childhood memory? Summers at Desert Lake. It's an awesome place.
- Different jobs you have had in your life? Carpenter, Machine operator, Powerplant Mechanic's Assistant, Christmas Tree harvester, Seedling picker (Tree jerker), Fish gutter, Forest Service Trail and Bridge Builder, Waterslide Builder (my most successful yet).
- Nicknames? Flip
- Piercing? None now, nor ever.
- Ever been to Africa? Nope
- Ever been toilet papered? Nope
- Love someone so much it made you cry? Not yet
- Been in a car accident? Minor ones
- Croutons or bacon bits? Bacon bits? Bleh! I like croutons. Bacon bits are just about the only thing that I always avoid at the salad bar.
- Favorite day of the week? Sunday - it's usually a relaxing day, unless you work 7 days/week as I usually do.
- Favorite restaurant? Any Non-chain family restaurant with good food/service.
- Favorite flower? I honestly have never chosen one.
- Favorite ice cream? Vanilla
- Disney or Warner Brothers? Hmm, I have some fond memories of Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn - then again, Chip and Dale were pretty good too.
- Favorite fast food restaurant? Subway
- What color is your bedroom carpet? Hotel carpet is usually multicolored, the room I'm in now has a greenish carpet.
- How many times did you fail your driver's test? Once, but it was the instructor's fault
- Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? Thinkgeek newsletter
- Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Home Depot or any hardware/tool store
- What do you do most often when you are bored? Sleep, surf the net, write blog posts.
- Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire? I don't really care that much and whenever I come across one of these I usually don't even read the whole thing.
- Last person you went to dinner with? My boss and the crew I work with.
- Ford or Chevy? If we're talking trucks, it's Chevy. As for cars, any of the big Japanese car companies - Honda, Toyota, or Subaru. But I usually get stuck driving our Ford work van.
- What are you listening to right now? The humm of my computer's cooling fan
- How many tattoos do you have? None now or ever
- Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken.
Monday, January 23, 2006
I almost drilled into my eye
Today I was bolting the end piece of a waterslide. It's the very last piece which dumps into the pool. These pieces are always tough because they have to be bolted in place and there's very little room between the seam and the ground and/or concrete - and the last piece is totally enclosed except the very back where it is bolted. The one I was doing today was particularly bad (they're always different because the pool design is always different).
I had just enough room to get my arm behind the seam while laying on the ground. Only the end piece has holes pre-drilled in it, so I have to drill through the end piece out.
While drilling one of the highest holes, the only way I could get the drill in there was lay nearly flat on the ground and stick my arm into the opening up to my shoulder with my elbow bent to get the drill in the right spot.
In this position, my head was at the same height as the drill. I was aware of this and was keeping my head away from the seam, but the drill bit came through a little faster and farther than I expected. I had to jerk my head out of the way to avoid getting drilled in the eye. It could have been bad.
As it happens, the only injury I sustained on that seam was a skinned knuckle.
I had just enough room to get my arm behind the seam while laying on the ground. Only the end piece has holes pre-drilled in it, so I have to drill through the end piece out.
While drilling one of the highest holes, the only way I could get the drill in there was lay nearly flat on the ground and stick my arm into the opening up to my shoulder with my elbow bent to get the drill in the right spot.
In this position, my head was at the same height as the drill. I was aware of this and was keeping my head away from the seam, but the drill bit came through a little faster and farther than I expected. I had to jerk my head out of the way to avoid getting drilled in the eye. It could have been bad.
As it happens, the only injury I sustained on that seam was a skinned knuckle.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Telluride Pictures
Becky Sent me some pictures of the Telluride trip. Here are a few.
First, some shots of the mountains
Here I am standing in front of a bridge that crosses one of the ski trails - there are roads and stuff that cross the trails. There are lodges and houses along the trail - the residents can just ski out from their front door.
That's me.
Here's Sarah cruising down a steep slope
Here's one of the lodges I mentioned - there are some impressive lodges/houses up there.
Here's a shot of the group - we all drove back to MN in a minivan and we all had lots of junk including 4 snowboards.
First, some shots of the mountains
Here I am standing in front of a bridge that crosses one of the ski trails - there are roads and stuff that cross the trails. There are lodges and houses along the trail - the residents can just ski out from their front door.
That's me.
Here's Sarah cruising down a steep slope
Here's one of the lodges I mentioned - there are some impressive lodges/houses up there.
Here's a shot of the group - we all drove back to MN in a minivan and we all had lots of junk including 4 snowboards.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
A few years ago, I wrote a journaling program and subsequently lost it when I sold the computer I wrote it on - I could get it, or I could just as easily rewrite it, but being as lazy as I am, I searched the internet for a similar program.
And I found scribbler. It's quite similar to the program I wrote - it takes care of opening and naming a text document for a daily journal entry. It's even written in Python, which is what I wrote mine in.
There are a few technical differences. My program started a new file each time it was run and kept them all sorted by date and time. Scribbler keeps only one file per day and also has a browse mode which opens a web browser and points it to the diary directory. Oh, and my program had the option to scramble the entries so that they couldn't be (easily) read with a normal text editor - it would descramble them and open them in an editor to read them.
And I found scribbler. It's quite similar to the program I wrote - it takes care of opening and naming a text document for a daily journal entry. It's even written in Python, which is what I wrote mine in.
There are a few technical differences. My program started a new file each time it was run and kept them all sorted by date and time. Scribbler keeps only one file per day and also has a browse mode which opens a web browser and points it to the diary directory. Oh, and my program had the option to scramble the entries so that they couldn't be (easily) read with a normal text editor - it would descramble them and open them in an editor to read them.
Monday, January 16, 2006
First non-crazy post since the spinoff of craziness
I suggested that Becky submit some photos to jones soda. If you don't know, jones soda is this really cool soft drink company that prints customer photos on the bottles. It's a fairly unique and cool idea. I'd post some photos if I wasn't too lazy and stuff. Becky said that she'd already thought of it, but it seems that she's pretty lazy too.
but then she did post a (at least one) photo on there and sent me an e-card about it. Go see her photo and vote for it. Then go look at other photos in the gallery and vote for cool ones that don't have dogs in them - it seems that a lot of jones soda gallery viewers like dogs - sort by most popular and make sure that some non-dog photos get up there. Tell all your friend and tell them to tell all their friends because I don't think that my readership is high enough to make any difference.
Too bad you can't vote "11"
but then she did post a (at least one) photo on there and sent me an e-card about it. Go see her photo and vote for it. Then go look at other photos in the gallery and vote for cool ones that don't have dogs in them - it seems that a lot of jones soda gallery viewers like dogs - sort by most popular and make sure that some non-dog photos get up there. Tell all your friend and tell them to tell all their friends because I don't think that my readership is high enough to make any difference.
Too bad you can't vote "11"
New Blog
I need to keep the craziness on my main blog to a minimum, so I've started Craziness. Go read that if you want to read my craziness - and pretend that all my past craziness is on there and that you never saw it. I'm sure I'll be filling the new blog with lots and lots of new craziness, so if you're into that sort of thing (you sicko), go read it there.
Friday, January 13, 2006
You may be wrong.
This is just a crazy rant. You can ignore it.
I have a point, but it'll take a bit of reasoning to fully express the idea that I wish to get across.
A few basic ideas that must be accepted. Some of these may be less relevant than others - remember this is a rant, I might get a bit crazy.
1. There is a definite truth, though we may not know it (none of this "existence is an illution" or "truth is relative" junk). We accept that any assumption, hypothesis, belief, etc is either true or not true based on the facts of reality which stand on their own reguardless of human perception. The state of a thing can change over time, but at any given instant, there is a definite state, though we may be unable to determine what it is/was/will be. An event either happened or did not happen though accounts of the event may change thus becoming more detached from reality which is constant.
2. Our human capacity for knowledge and understanding is limited, though we may be unable to determine or practically reach this limit. This applies to an individual as well as the collective body of human life. Our physical brains are finite and must have some finite capacity/capability.
3. Every human being has a personal world-view or philosophy that is composed of what that person accepts as reality.
4. Every society has a common philosophy that is made up of the average or commonly accepted points in the philosophies of each member of that society. This common philosophy may be weigthed by influence - a more influential/vocal person may contribute more to the common philosophy than the less influential.
5. It has been demonstrated throughout history that these philosophies (personal and common) contain factual errors - they can be wrong. A wise person/society will adapt the philosophy to fit truth as it is discovered - with, of course, a proper level of scepticism requiring a certain amount of "proof". This is constantly happening to us as individuals and our society.
6. What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular. Truth exists as it is reguardless of popular opinion.
7. People can be (are) largely driven by emotional factors and are often unaware of their own true motives. A big one is pride. (I am using the term "emotion" to refer to any motivation that is not based on the desire to uncover factual reality and which may be counterproductive to this pursuit)
8. Appearances are deceiving. What appears to be true may be partially or totally false.
9. People are(can be) stupid. This includes me and you, though we rarely recognize or acknowledge it of ourselves. We are willing to accept an idea without logical reasoning if it appeals to our emotions/desires.
10. People are(can be) smart. With proper logic and detachment from emotional factors, it is possible to refine one's philosophy in order for it to reach a state closer to actual reality.
11. People are selfish. They will hold, defend, and propogate an idea which they may subconciously (or conciously) know to be false if doing so achieves some personal gain. This is obviously counterproductive in reguards to achieveing a more realistic philosophy.
Ok, I think that's about enough to get my point across. If you've read this far, then perhaps you are ready for the point of this post.
The title is "You may be wrong", but the conclution that I now derive is that you ARE wrong.
It is impossible for you or me to have an entirely realistic world-view. There are undoubtedly some beliefs that you and I hold which are false.
It is wise to examine our world-views piece-by-piece in order to determine why we believe what we believe - what facts, what logic is behind each belief - what emotions are behind each belief. To what philosophies do we subscribe simply because it is "public opinion" or some such thing.
Can you accept that a certain philosophy of yours may be false.
Can you accept that a certain philosophy that someone else holds (which perhaps you have scoffed at) may be true(or close to it, we must accept varying degrees of truth).
It seems very arrogant to believe that one's own world-view is entirely accurate.
There are countless examples of this sort of thing throughout history. I will mention a few as they come to me - and I am not talking about superstitious beliefs, I am talking about generally accepted scientific principles.
It was once believed that solid glass is actually a slow moving fluid. This was taught in science texts and generally reguarded as true. It is now believed that solid glass does not flow at all, but that traditional glaziers normally produced glass that would be thicker on one side and would generally align the glass with the thicker end down (perhaps for structural reasons). This gives the appearance that the glass has "flowed" down over time. Sometimes, in fact, a piece of glass is discovered which is thicker at the top than at the bottom - how could flowing account for that.
It was once taught that the earth was the center of the solar system and all the planets, the sun, and the moon revolved around the earth. Today, this is obviously not true. The same goes for the earth being flat. A side note here: it is often speculated that this is in some way related to the teaching of the Christian Bible - this is not true. While christians would have believed this along with everyone else in the world, it is not biblical.
The idea of Spontaneous Generation was once commonly thought to be true - that life could emerge spontaneously from non-living things. For example it was once believed that rats were spontaneously generated from piles of rags, mice from grain, maggots from meat. Aristotle taught this. It is now known to be completely false.
There are examples of such things today. There are many small ones which make shows like "The Myth Busters" interresting. There are bigger ones, but they can be more subtle - otherwise they would be determined to be false and dismissed.
I have a point, but it'll take a bit of reasoning to fully express the idea that I wish to get across.
A few basic ideas that must be accepted. Some of these may be less relevant than others - remember this is a rant, I might get a bit crazy.
1. There is a definite truth, though we may not know it (none of this "existence is an illution" or "truth is relative" junk). We accept that any assumption, hypothesis, belief, etc is either true or not true based on the facts of reality which stand on their own reguardless of human perception. The state of a thing can change over time, but at any given instant, there is a definite state, though we may be unable to determine what it is/was/will be. An event either happened or did not happen though accounts of the event may change thus becoming more detached from reality which is constant.
2. Our human capacity for knowledge and understanding is limited, though we may be unable to determine or practically reach this limit. This applies to an individual as well as the collective body of human life. Our physical brains are finite and must have some finite capacity/capability.
3. Every human being has a personal world-view or philosophy that is composed of what that person accepts as reality.
4. Every society has a common philosophy that is made up of the average or commonly accepted points in the philosophies of each member of that society. This common philosophy may be weigthed by influence - a more influential/vocal person may contribute more to the common philosophy than the less influential.
5. It has been demonstrated throughout history that these philosophies (personal and common) contain factual errors - they can be wrong. A wise person/society will adapt the philosophy to fit truth as it is discovered - with, of course, a proper level of scepticism requiring a certain amount of "proof". This is constantly happening to us as individuals and our society.
6. What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular. Truth exists as it is reguardless of popular opinion.
7. People can be (are) largely driven by emotional factors and are often unaware of their own true motives. A big one is pride. (I am using the term "emotion" to refer to any motivation that is not based on the desire to uncover factual reality and which may be counterproductive to this pursuit)
8. Appearances are deceiving. What appears to be true may be partially or totally false.
9. People are(can be) stupid. This includes me and you, though we rarely recognize or acknowledge it of ourselves. We are willing to accept an idea without logical reasoning if it appeals to our emotions/desires.
10. People are(can be) smart. With proper logic and detachment from emotional factors, it is possible to refine one's philosophy in order for it to reach a state closer to actual reality.
11. People are selfish. They will hold, defend, and propogate an idea which they may subconciously (or conciously) know to be false if doing so achieves some personal gain. This is obviously counterproductive in reguards to achieveing a more realistic philosophy.
Ok, I think that's about enough to get my point across. If you've read this far, then perhaps you are ready for the point of this post.
The title is "You may be wrong", but the conclution that I now derive is that you ARE wrong.
It is impossible for you or me to have an entirely realistic world-view. There are undoubtedly some beliefs that you and I hold which are false.
It is wise to examine our world-views piece-by-piece in order to determine why we believe what we believe - what facts, what logic is behind each belief - what emotions are behind each belief. To what philosophies do we subscribe simply because it is "public opinion" or some such thing.
Can you accept that a certain philosophy of yours may be false.
Can you accept that a certain philosophy that someone else holds (which perhaps you have scoffed at) may be true(or close to it, we must accept varying degrees of truth).
It seems very arrogant to believe that one's own world-view is entirely accurate.
There are countless examples of this sort of thing throughout history. I will mention a few as they come to me - and I am not talking about superstitious beliefs, I am talking about generally accepted scientific principles.
It was once believed that solid glass is actually a slow moving fluid. This was taught in science texts and generally reguarded as true. It is now believed that solid glass does not flow at all, but that traditional glaziers normally produced glass that would be thicker on one side and would generally align the glass with the thicker end down (perhaps for structural reasons). This gives the appearance that the glass has "flowed" down over time. Sometimes, in fact, a piece of glass is discovered which is thicker at the top than at the bottom - how could flowing account for that.
It was once taught that the earth was the center of the solar system and all the planets, the sun, and the moon revolved around the earth. Today, this is obviously not true. The same goes for the earth being flat. A side note here: it is often speculated that this is in some way related to the teaching of the Christian Bible - this is not true. While christians would have believed this along with everyone else in the world, it is not biblical.
The idea of Spontaneous Generation was once commonly thought to be true - that life could emerge spontaneously from non-living things. For example it was once believed that rats were spontaneously generated from piles of rags, mice from grain, maggots from meat. Aristotle taught this. It is now known to be completely false.
There are examples of such things today. There are many small ones which make shows like "The Myth Busters" interresting. There are bigger ones, but they can be more subtle - otherwise they would be determined to be false and dismissed.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
The Kitten Dog
She's a one and a half year old Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Tequilla - called Quilla (pronouced like Kia) for short and she lives with my parents in Wyoming. She loves cats, especially kittens - not to eat or to torture, just to be around and play with.
Thomas brought a 3 month old kitten with him for Christmas. At first it was afraid of Quilla and would hiss and run and stuff. But Quilla kept at it until the kitten would tolerate her, and eventually play with her. When Thomas went home, taking the kitten with him, Quilla seemed to mope around the house - it was sad.
My dad is a vet and his clinic is right next to the house, so Quilla spends a lot of time with the cats and other animals there as well. There is a stray kitten that someone brought in which they haven't found a home for yet. This thing will not let anyone near it - not even Quilla, at first. Quilla worked on this kitten and now it will let her near, but still not anyone else.
When I was there, I went down to the clinic to help my dad with something and while he was busy with something else, I was looking around at his equipment and dog breed charts and stuff. Quilla came up to me, looked at me like she wanted something, walked over to a doorway, and looked back at me as if she wanted me to follow. So I followed. And she walked to another doorway and waited for me. I followed. She eventually led me to the kennel room with all the cats (all two that is). She looked at the cats and looked at me. "Meet my friends", she seemed to say. So I took a look at the cats. The stray that my dad had told me about wasn't around - she runs loose in the clinic and hides whenever people are around. "Are these your cats?" I asked Quilla. The cats meowed, I meowed back. Quilla gave me a funny look.
She's a funny dog.
Thomas brought a 3 month old kitten with him for Christmas. At first it was afraid of Quilla and would hiss and run and stuff. But Quilla kept at it until the kitten would tolerate her, and eventually play with her. When Thomas went home, taking the kitten with him, Quilla seemed to mope around the house - it was sad.
My dad is a vet and his clinic is right next to the house, so Quilla spends a lot of time with the cats and other animals there as well. There is a stray kitten that someone brought in which they haven't found a home for yet. This thing will not let anyone near it - not even Quilla, at first. Quilla worked on this kitten and now it will let her near, but still not anyone else.
When I was there, I went down to the clinic to help my dad with something and while he was busy with something else, I was looking around at his equipment and dog breed charts and stuff. Quilla came up to me, looked at me like she wanted something, walked over to a doorway, and looked back at me as if she wanted me to follow. So I followed. And she walked to another doorway and waited for me. I followed. She eventually led me to the kennel room with all the cats (all two that is). She looked at the cats and looked at me. "Meet my friends", she seemed to say. So I took a look at the cats. The stray that my dad had told me about wasn't around - she runs loose in the clinic and hides whenever people are around. "Are these your cats?" I asked Quilla. The cats meowed, I meowed back. Quilla gave me a funny look.
She's a funny dog.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
I skied at Telluride yesterday. It was awesome.
I was in Wyoming for Christmas, hanging out with the family. My cousin Liz lives and works in Telluride and her sisters, another cousin, and a friend went out to see her, then all of them went down to Arizona to visit another cousin.
I met them in Telluride when they got back from Arizona and we went skiing. It was awesome.
I've skied at a few hills back East (Peek'n Peak, Holiday Valley) and at Alyeska in Alaska, but none of them were quite as nice as Telluride. The Eastern "Mountains" are just little hills compared to the actual mountains in Colorado and Alaska. Alyeska is on a real mountain, but it's not very fancy and they don't have the variety of terrain or as many runs as Telluride.
However, Telluride is also very up-scale, which intimidates me. There are "houses" in the $10-20 Million range. I guess that Tom Cruise has a house there. Everything is expensive. Alyeska is more down-to-earth, red-neck friendly
I was in Wyoming for Christmas, hanging out with the family. My cousin Liz lives and works in Telluride and her sisters, another cousin, and a friend went out to see her, then all of them went down to Arizona to visit another cousin.
I met them in Telluride when they got back from Arizona and we went skiing. It was awesome.
I've skied at a few hills back East (Peek'n Peak, Holiday Valley) and at Alyeska in Alaska, but none of them were quite as nice as Telluride. The Eastern "Mountains" are just little hills compared to the actual mountains in Colorado and Alaska. Alyeska is on a real mountain, but it's not very fancy and they don't have the variety of terrain or as many runs as Telluride.
However, Telluride is also very up-scale, which intimidates me. There are "houses" in the $10-20 Million range. I guess that Tom Cruise has a house there. Everything is expensive. Alyeska is more down-to-earth, red-neck friendly
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Why I use Linux
Pretty much everybody that I know knows that I don't care much for Microsoft junk. This sentiment goes way back to my early days as a computer geek - to before I knew there was any such thing as linux and I though that Unix was something that was just for big business computers and Mainframes and stuff.
I remember when I was first introduced to the concept that there are alternatives to MS Windows. Windows 95 was the top dog at the time and I'd reinstall it every few months in order to keep my system running smoothly. I figured out a lot about installing Windows 95.
Anyway, I was sitting on the toilet reading a computer magazine and came across this article about Windows alternatives. There was FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, and maybe another one or two. This was nineteen ninety something, so they weren't too well known or advanced as far as usability on the PC or suitability as a Windows replacement. But they were all free - I'd known about free software, it's called shareware. But I had no concept of open source or free-as-in-speech software and didn't get it until much later on. So I read the article and thought, "Well, that's interesting", then forgot all about it for a while. I may have done some searches on the internet (this was before google's domination as a search engine, so I was probably using AltaVista or something), and I think I downloaded some code, but I didn't know what to do with it or how to turn it into a running operating system.
Then, some time later, somebody gave me a RedHat 5.something CD. He'd gotten it from a local computer users group that had a few people experimenting with linux. I installed it. I figured out how to shut the system down. I couldn't get the GUI to work (I was thinking that maybe I could get Quake 3 running on there). No GUI and none of the DOS commands that I knew work (I was quite familiar with a DOS command line at this point). But, as I said, I did figure out the shutdown command - after rebooting the hard way a few times and corrupting the filesystem. Then I thought, "Eh, forget it" and reinstalled Windows on the system.
Then I went to Alaska. I got an old computer from the Good Will for $50 or something. I had a lot of time with not much to do, so I got on the internet and started reading about linux. I found Debian and started downloading the floppy installation set - it was like 14 floppies or something. This was annoying my uncle whom I was living with because he only had dial-up and only one phone line - but I did most of my downloading at night. I got that base system installed only to discover that you have to connect this to the internet and download more stuff if you want anything useful. So I played with it for a while, but never got it to much of a useful state. I read everything that I could find about installing and using linux and I ordered a Debian Linux Bible that came with an install cd - the only problem is that the old piece of junk computer can't boot from a cd. But I got something working and played with it some more. All this time, I'm learning to use the linux command line quite well, though there were many unix concepts that I didn't quite get (it's really philosophically different from a certain perspective).
I moved around a bit in Alaska, all the time reading about linux if I didn't have a system to play with it on. While living in Kenai, I got Redhat 7 or 8 installed with the Gnome Desktop Environment for a GUI and got it on the internet - used it for email, web browsing, printing, etc. While I was staying with a guy near the town of North Pole (it's not far from Fairbanks), I used his printer to print the book Linux From Scratch (some old version circa summer 2002) - it was a couple hundred pages anyhow - oh, I also printed the Linux Users Guide (LUG) available from tldp.org. But I didn't have a computer to install it on at the time.
I moved back to Pennsylvania, stopping in Minnesota to work for a while. All this time, I'm reading linux stuff wherever I can get it. At some point, I have a caseless computer in a wooden drawer that I'm bringing around with me (I'm a bit of a vagabond, so I travel a lot). The thing was an AMD K5 or K6 - anyhow it was pretty slow. I'd been experimenting with a dual-booting setup with Windows and Linux on the same machine - I wasn't quite ready to completely give up my reliance on Windows. By this time, I was quite familiar with dual-booting, disk partitioning, linux filesystems, the fat32 filesystem, the bootloaders lilo and grub, and the configuration of these bootloaders.
I don't even remember how many computers I'd gone through in all of this, let alone all the different configurations of each (add a harddrive here, try a different distro there, etc). I'd get one free from somebody or throw one together from some spare parts I'd picked up or just had laying around. I even bought an old piece of junk from a local computer store for $130 - used it for quite a while too. By this time, I was dual-booting linux and WindowsXP, though for a long time I was using WinXP in a fat32 filesystem so I'd be able to modify it from within linux. And I was using open source software in windows as well - notably the gimp.
Somewhere in there, I started playing with Python which is a cool interpreted programming language. I've always wanted to get into programming more, but have never had the ambition.
I got an 800 Mhz AMD Athlon (already pretty old by this point, but faster than the PIII-450 I was using) from a friend for $100 or something - the motherboard was shot, so I had to find a replacement. The processor was a Slot A which had already been phased out by AMD. I called a couple of local places to see if they'd have an old Slot A board around - one place told me that they had one, but when I got there (an hour's drive) it turned out to be a Socket A afterall and therefore no good to me. I finally found one through a Yahoo search and ordered it - it might have been the very last retail Slot A board ever sold. I got the thing up and running with 256 meg o' ram, and an 80 gig harddrive I'd been carrying around for a while (swapping from one old crappy computer to another not quite as old or crappy).
I had the Athlon 800 for some time - I gave the PIII 450 to my brother John 'cause his PIII 700 got toasted in travel and he said that the 450 was plenty for what he was doing - I just swapped harddrives and maybe gave it a ram boost.
I finally got the time and ambition to install Linux From Scratch on the Athlon. I was staying with the Greene's at the time and they had cable internet, so having my computer downloading all the time wasn't a problem. LFS takes a very long time and a lot of work to install. Basically, you start with a very minimal pre-compiled base install (or you could start from any other linux distro). From this, you compile the basic packages and install them into a clean filesystem tree. As soon as this base setup is functional, you chroot into it, so you compile everything else from within the system that you just compiled. Everything is compiled from source which takes a long time, and there is no package management system in the basic setup - you can install the package manager from any distro you like after the basic system is up and running. Every package can be configured/patched/tailored to your liking. There are many choices to be made as there can be several alternatives for a particular tool. So I got LFS installed - it took a while because I was also working construction full time.
I had LFS working, but there were a few things I didn't like about it - I liked how everything gets compiled from source, but resolving dependencies by hand is a bit straining and things started to get a bit cluttered.
Then I discovered Gentoo. It's like LFS, but the install is automated and it includes what might be the best package management system ever developed. The package database includes just about every piece of open source software you could ever want - the actual source code is obtained from the developer's website or another mirror - gentoo does not keep an archive of source code for all packages. Anybody can make a package for some new software and submit it to be added to the database - so there are packages for just about everything (open source that is).
Then I sold the Athlon to a cousin for $100. I talked her into keeping Gentoo installed on it (it also had WinXP on it of course), but as far as I know, she never uses Gentoo (she still has the computer, it's having some issues though). But it still has Gentoo installed on it.
I did not replace the Athlon 800 right away. I did not have high speed internet at the time and I decided to take a break from tinkering with computers for financial and other reasons (I also did not have a job at this point).
Then I got a job - a job building waterslides. I went to Orlando for a couple of months and decided to get another old computer and install linux on it to serve as a sort of internet kiosk for me and my roommates (5 of us). It was old (don't remember the specs), but it worked - I had a 120 Gb HD in there. I think that I eventually abandoned it in the back of someone's truck - never to be seen again. Or maybe I gave it to someone else, I don't remember. But I got rid of it when I built an Athon64 3000+ with 1Gb Ram, the 120 Gb HD from the old computer and a 160 Gb HD, a dual-layer DVD burner, dual gigabit lan on the motherboard, PCI-X, a super lan boy case with carrying strap, and some other nice features. I built it while on the road after the Orlando job. I installed Gentoo on it of course - this time without WinXP. My Athon64 processor has never run a bit of Microsoft code.
Most jobs don't last as long as Orlando, so I had to leave it at home a lot. I decided to buy a laptop. The last time that I brough the desktop on the road, the motherboard started having some hardware malfunctions. Two of the memory slots don't work anymore and the gigabit lan's don't work at all anymore - I had to get a pci 100 Mbit card. And after the trip home, I'm not sure that the motherboard will work at all because I didn't fully reinstall it after taking it out to see if I could get the lan's to work - I only put 2 of the 9 motherboard screws back in, then brought it the 900 miles home in a rickety cargo van which I'm sure is what caused it to mess up in the first place.
I also got my laptop on that trip, so I don't need the desktop anymore. I think that I'm going to replace the motherboard, shed a tear, install WindowsXP, and give it to my mom and dad. They could use a nice desktop. Their only computer is an old IBM laptop that they pretty much use as if it were a desktop (don't think it's been off the desk in over a year). When I say "they", I mean my dad because my mom doesn't use it much at all. I'm hoping that may change if I give them the desktop though, because most of her family uses email now (including her mom), so it'd be a good way to keep in touch.
Yeah, I still got WinXP on my laptop - only for my gps software. If I could find a linux alternative for that, I'd be set.
I remember when I was first introduced to the concept that there are alternatives to MS Windows. Windows 95 was the top dog at the time and I'd reinstall it every few months in order to keep my system running smoothly. I figured out a lot about installing Windows 95.
Anyway, I was sitting on the toilet reading a computer magazine and came across this article about Windows alternatives. There was FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, and maybe another one or two. This was nineteen ninety something, so they weren't too well known or advanced as far as usability on the PC or suitability as a Windows replacement. But they were all free - I'd known about free software, it's called shareware. But I had no concept of open source or free-as-in-speech software and didn't get it until much later on. So I read the article and thought, "Well, that's interesting", then forgot all about it for a while. I may have done some searches on the internet (this was before google's domination as a search engine, so I was probably using AltaVista or something), and I think I downloaded some code, but I didn't know what to do with it or how to turn it into a running operating system.
Then, some time later, somebody gave me a RedHat 5.something CD. He'd gotten it from a local computer users group that had a few people experimenting with linux. I installed it. I figured out how to shut the system down. I couldn't get the GUI to work (I was thinking that maybe I could get Quake 3 running on there). No GUI and none of the DOS commands that I knew work (I was quite familiar with a DOS command line at this point). But, as I said, I did figure out the shutdown command - after rebooting the hard way a few times and corrupting the filesystem. Then I thought, "Eh, forget it" and reinstalled Windows on the system.
Then I went to Alaska. I got an old computer from the Good Will for $50 or something. I had a lot of time with not much to do, so I got on the internet and started reading about linux. I found Debian and started downloading the floppy installation set - it was like 14 floppies or something. This was annoying my uncle whom I was living with because he only had dial-up and only one phone line - but I did most of my downloading at night. I got that base system installed only to discover that you have to connect this to the internet and download more stuff if you want anything useful. So I played with it for a while, but never got it to much of a useful state. I read everything that I could find about installing and using linux and I ordered a Debian Linux Bible that came with an install cd - the only problem is that the old piece of junk computer can't boot from a cd. But I got something working and played with it some more. All this time, I'm learning to use the linux command line quite well, though there were many unix concepts that I didn't quite get (it's really philosophically different from a certain perspective).
I moved around a bit in Alaska, all the time reading about linux if I didn't have a system to play with it on. While living in Kenai, I got Redhat 7 or 8 installed with the Gnome Desktop Environment for a GUI and got it on the internet - used it for email, web browsing, printing, etc. While I was staying with a guy near the town of North Pole (it's not far from Fairbanks), I used his printer to print the book Linux From Scratch (some old version circa summer 2002) - it was a couple hundred pages anyhow - oh, I also printed the Linux Users Guide (LUG) available from tldp.org. But I didn't have a computer to install it on at the time.
I moved back to Pennsylvania, stopping in Minnesota to work for a while. All this time, I'm reading linux stuff wherever I can get it. At some point, I have a caseless computer in a wooden drawer that I'm bringing around with me (I'm a bit of a vagabond, so I travel a lot). The thing was an AMD K5 or K6 - anyhow it was pretty slow. I'd been experimenting with a dual-booting setup with Windows and Linux on the same machine - I wasn't quite ready to completely give up my reliance on Windows. By this time, I was quite familiar with dual-booting, disk partitioning, linux filesystems, the fat32 filesystem, the bootloaders lilo and grub, and the configuration of these bootloaders.
I don't even remember how many computers I'd gone through in all of this, let alone all the different configurations of each (add a harddrive here, try a different distro there, etc). I'd get one free from somebody or throw one together from some spare parts I'd picked up or just had laying around. I even bought an old piece of junk from a local computer store for $130 - used it for quite a while too. By this time, I was dual-booting linux and WindowsXP, though for a long time I was using WinXP in a fat32 filesystem so I'd be able to modify it from within linux. And I was using open source software in windows as well - notably the gimp.
Somewhere in there, I started playing with Python which is a cool interpreted programming language. I've always wanted to get into programming more, but have never had the ambition.
I got an 800 Mhz AMD Athlon (already pretty old by this point, but faster than the PIII-450 I was using) from a friend for $100 or something - the motherboard was shot, so I had to find a replacement. The processor was a Slot A which had already been phased out by AMD. I called a couple of local places to see if they'd have an old Slot A board around - one place told me that they had one, but when I got there (an hour's drive) it turned out to be a Socket A afterall and therefore no good to me. I finally found one through a Yahoo search and ordered it - it might have been the very last retail Slot A board ever sold. I got the thing up and running with 256 meg o' ram, and an 80 gig harddrive I'd been carrying around for a while (swapping from one old crappy computer to another not quite as old or crappy).
I had the Athlon 800 for some time - I gave the PIII 450 to my brother John 'cause his PIII 700 got toasted in travel and he said that the 450 was plenty for what he was doing - I just swapped harddrives and maybe gave it a ram boost.
I finally got the time and ambition to install Linux From Scratch on the Athlon. I was staying with the Greene's at the time and they had cable internet, so having my computer downloading all the time wasn't a problem. LFS takes a very long time and a lot of work to install. Basically, you start with a very minimal pre-compiled base install (or you could start from any other linux distro). From this, you compile the basic packages and install them into a clean filesystem tree. As soon as this base setup is functional, you chroot into it, so you compile everything else from within the system that you just compiled. Everything is compiled from source which takes a long time, and there is no package management system in the basic setup - you can install the package manager from any distro you like after the basic system is up and running. Every package can be configured/patched/tailored to your liking. There are many choices to be made as there can be several alternatives for a particular tool. So I got LFS installed - it took a while because I was also working construction full time.
I had LFS working, but there were a few things I didn't like about it - I liked how everything gets compiled from source, but resolving dependencies by hand is a bit straining and things started to get a bit cluttered.
Then I discovered Gentoo. It's like LFS, but the install is automated and it includes what might be the best package management system ever developed. The package database includes just about every piece of open source software you could ever want - the actual source code is obtained from the developer's website or another mirror - gentoo does not keep an archive of source code for all packages. Anybody can make a package for some new software and submit it to be added to the database - so there are packages for just about everything (open source that is).
Then I sold the Athlon to a cousin for $100. I talked her into keeping Gentoo installed on it (it also had WinXP on it of course), but as far as I know, she never uses Gentoo (she still has the computer, it's having some issues though). But it still has Gentoo installed on it.
I did not replace the Athlon 800 right away. I did not have high speed internet at the time and I decided to take a break from tinkering with computers for financial and other reasons (I also did not have a job at this point).
Then I got a job - a job building waterslides. I went to Orlando for a couple of months and decided to get another old computer and install linux on it to serve as a sort of internet kiosk for me and my roommates (5 of us). It was old (don't remember the specs), but it worked - I had a 120 Gb HD in there. I think that I eventually abandoned it in the back of someone's truck - never to be seen again. Or maybe I gave it to someone else, I don't remember. But I got rid of it when I built an Athon64 3000+ with 1Gb Ram, the 120 Gb HD from the old computer and a 160 Gb HD, a dual-layer DVD burner, dual gigabit lan on the motherboard, PCI-X, a super lan boy case with carrying strap, and some other nice features. I built it while on the road after the Orlando job. I installed Gentoo on it of course - this time without WinXP. My Athon64 processor has never run a bit of Microsoft code.
Most jobs don't last as long as Orlando, so I had to leave it at home a lot. I decided to buy a laptop. The last time that I brough the desktop on the road, the motherboard started having some hardware malfunctions. Two of the memory slots don't work anymore and the gigabit lan's don't work at all anymore - I had to get a pci 100 Mbit card. And after the trip home, I'm not sure that the motherboard will work at all because I didn't fully reinstall it after taking it out to see if I could get the lan's to work - I only put 2 of the 9 motherboard screws back in, then brought it the 900 miles home in a rickety cargo van which I'm sure is what caused it to mess up in the first place.
I also got my laptop on that trip, so I don't need the desktop anymore. I think that I'm going to replace the motherboard, shed a tear, install WindowsXP, and give it to my mom and dad. They could use a nice desktop. Their only computer is an old IBM laptop that they pretty much use as if it were a desktop (don't think it's been off the desk in over a year). When I say "they", I mean my dad because my mom doesn't use it much at all. I'm hoping that may change if I give them the desktop though, because most of her family uses email now (including her mom), so it'd be a good way to keep in touch.
Yeah, I still got WinXP on my laptop - only for my gps software. If I could find a linux alternative for that, I'd be set.
I told Mom about the chair
Today, I told my mom about an incident that happened several years ago. I've been holding it back from her because I was pretty sure that it would upset her and I don't like to upset her. She said something today that caused me to realize that it wouldn't upset her so bad.
We got some "new" chairs one time - I don't know when. They weren't new, just new to us. They're kind of crappy - my parents still have at least one of them and it makes a lot of noise whenever you sit in it. I think that the parts are bolted together and the bolts aren't that tight and the general design isn't so good, so all the joints twist and creak whenever you shift your weight at all. Some of them had arms, some did not. The chair in question did have arms.
I think that Thomas was still in High School and I was recently graduated. We were rough housing or sort of fighting or something - it probably wasn't anything serious, we were just playing around. I don't remember the events exactly, but one of us pushed the other down or something and we broke the arm off of the chair. Now, this was not a simple break at the joint or anything that could be repaired without replacing some wood - and we both understood this. We looked at each other and came to an unspoken understanding that could be interpreted as "We have to get rid of it - she'll never miss it if it just dissapears." We may have exchanged a few words vocally, but we both understood - that's how we always communicatehttp://esvn.umputun.com/trac.cgi/ticket/38d, we just understood each other - we can carry on a conversation with grunts and half-words and understand each other perfectly.
So we went to town on the chair. We broke it into about 37 little pieces, carried it out to the burn pile along with the garbage (there was never a shortage of garbage waiting to be burned), and we toasted it. Now there's effectively no trace that the chair ever existed. Out of sight, out of mind. She probably doesn't even know how many of these chairs she has anyway, I mean they're spread all over the house. Whenever someone needed a chair somewhere, they'd grab one from the kitchen or wherever there was one not being used - with no concern over whether or not it was ever returned. ( When it came to meals of large gatherings, these chairs would be rounded up from wherever they'd been taken - but I doubt that anyone knew exactly how many we had. )
So the chair was gone and forgotten. No one ever missed it. She would never have known if I hadn't told her just this very day. And as it turns out, she didn't get the chairs in the first place - my dad did, and she never really cared much for them. So nobody was upset. Thomas and I had fun disposing of the chair.
I think that same summer we played catch with a baseball bat and were trying to spin it in such a way that the other guy couldn't catch it. Lots of dodging was involved.
We got some "new" chairs one time - I don't know when. They weren't new, just new to us. They're kind of crappy - my parents still have at least one of them and it makes a lot of noise whenever you sit in it. I think that the parts are bolted together and the bolts aren't that tight and the general design isn't so good, so all the joints twist and creak whenever you shift your weight at all. Some of them had arms, some did not. The chair in question did have arms.
I think that Thomas was still in High School and I was recently graduated. We were rough housing or sort of fighting or something - it probably wasn't anything serious, we were just playing around. I don't remember the events exactly, but one of us pushed the other down or something and we broke the arm off of the chair. Now, this was not a simple break at the joint or anything that could be repaired without replacing some wood - and we both understood this. We looked at each other and came to an unspoken understanding that could be interpreted as "We have to get rid of it - she'll never miss it if it just dissapears." We may have exchanged a few words vocally, but we both understood - that's how we always communicatehttp://esvn.umputun.com/trac.cgi/ticket/38d, we just understood each other - we can carry on a conversation with grunts and half-words and understand each other perfectly.
So we went to town on the chair. We broke it into about 37 little pieces, carried it out to the burn pile along with the garbage (there was never a shortage of garbage waiting to be burned), and we toasted it. Now there's effectively no trace that the chair ever existed. Out of sight, out of mind. She probably doesn't even know how many of these chairs she has anyway, I mean they're spread all over the house. Whenever someone needed a chair somewhere, they'd grab one from the kitchen or wherever there was one not being used - with no concern over whether or not it was ever returned. ( When it came to meals of large gatherings, these chairs would be rounded up from wherever they'd been taken - but I doubt that anyone knew exactly how many we had. )
So the chair was gone and forgotten. No one ever missed it. She would never have known if I hadn't told her just this very day. And as it turns out, she didn't get the chairs in the first place - my dad did, and she never really cared much for them. So nobody was upset. Thomas and I had fun disposing of the chair.
I think that same summer we played catch with a baseball bat and were trying to spin it in such a way that the other guy couldn't catch it. Lots of dodging was involved.