Category: Uncategorized

I broke out the programmer art skills and tweaked the header image to something a bit nicer than the default, and while I was at it, made myself an icon for the site. If the icon doesn’t show up for you, don’t blame me. Get yourself a standards–compliant browser. I don’t care about your pathetic… Continue reading A bit of a new look

OK, this is going to be a strange mix. WHAT DO YOU CALL: 1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks. A stream. 2. What the thing you push around the grocery store is called. A trolley or a cart. Depends if the back wheels swivel or not… 3.… Continue reading Language memage

In order to print out a tax form, I’ve just had to go through some silly security question rigmarole with my online bank. The wish-it-was two-factor authentication is getting quite out of hand these days. They are really desperate to give the appearance of security. In addition to displaying a chosen/random image and “security phrase”… Continue reading Wish-it-was two-factor authentication

[apologies to my LJ readers for the lack of cut] Lately I’ve been reading books on gifted children: how to identify them; how to deal with them; what to expect as a parent. Is mini-Elbeno gifted? Without wanting to sound like a competitive parent, and properly considering that it’s still early days, I think he’s… Continue reading On Being, and Raising, a Gifted Child

Heading west on Sunset (that winding bit just north of the Los Angeles Country Club), when a charcoal grey Lamborghini Murcielago pulls out just ahead of me. Nice. It made a lovely sound and went from zero to 40 in about 2 seconds. Really expensive cars tend to actually be driven well (unlike the run-of-the-mill… Continue reading LA Moments

Happy St David’s Day to all my Wales-connected friends. I’m not remotely Welsh. But I can say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. I suppose it’s been St David’s Day for 8 hours already, actually…

Mini-Elbeno & I are sitting at an Einstein Bros Bagels at about the 26 mile mark of the Rock & Roll Marathon. Mrs Elbeno (doing the 1/2) has gone through 5K in 29:32 according to the live tracking.

Mini-Elbeno is taking weekly French classes, and has a CD of French children’s songs, which we have been listening to for the past several weeks. I now know almost all of them and find myself humming them through the day. Some of them have catchy tunes… In addition to the well-known ISO standard skylark with… Continue reading French songs on the brain

I got a reply from my former teacher! It really gladdened me to get home on a Friday evening, in the dark, with the rain sheeting as Pacific storms are wont to do, and find a letter postmarked “Exeter & Devon” and addressed to me in familiar, tiny, reverse-side-of-the-fountain-pen-nib scrawl. I’m feeling all warm inside… Continue reading You never forget a good teacher: part 2

Tonight I spent a brief time looking at the “one laptop per child”. It’s a quite a nice little machine; just the thing for kids. You don’t get much in the box – in particular no manual to speak of, but what isn’t evident through exploration can be found at the OLPC wiki. A small… Continue reading A look at the XO laptop