Daley Ponderings

Whew... For some reason, taxes took longer than they have in other years.  Part of the time was spent trying to get out of a federal tax penalty for not calculating the estimated taxes correctly.  We spent 14.63 hours (courtesy of worklog ), mostly together working on them.  I... (More)

My friends Bonnie and Liz participated in the last Challenge, and quite intimidated me by doing so.  But I put OrgJunkie's blog in my reader (one of only three strangers' blogs I read) and have slowly been gaining confidence.  The real enouragement I give myself is to note what... (More)

Jonathan loves to create meals and side dishes.  On 10/2, he made a vegetable salad that we have recreated several times.  Carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes, onions, with one lemon's worth of juice as a dressing.  Simple and delicious. 10/12 - I was in the basement... (More)

We headed out Friday morning, listening to The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian on the way.  At our first stop, for gas, Jon realized that he hadn't brought his wallet.  One of our stops was at our "usual" rest area, the one with the pedestrian walkways over the... (More)

Sunday morning, after playing outside before church, Jonathan came to me complaining that his eye hurt.  It was red and watering, but I could not see any foreign object.  It continued to be irritated, so I wondered if it might be pinkeye. The pain would come in waves, hurting... (More)

Peter was nice enough to loan me a Kill-A-Watt for a couple weeks to investigate power usage around our home.  I have thought about buying one before, but borrowing one is certainly better, though it is quite a bit of fun to test out devices to see how much power they use. I... (More)

Here is a brief review of Organizing for your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone .  This is a neat book that gives some explanation about why some people have trouble keeping things organized and why some have trouble understanding those others. She puts people in four different groups,... (More)

As has already been observed, I haven't been so diligent at writing down the doings and sayings of my sons.  Here's what I did write down and what other stuff I can remember. 8/24 - Noah built a block tower with four blocks. Recently, Noah has been patient for the prayer before... (More)

I was recently asked to speak at IVCF at CMU on the topic of Christian view of success and vocation.  I am supposed to talk for 15 minutes, which will probably go very fast, so I need to be more concise than I usually would be. Our topic for this Large Group is the Christian view of success... (More)

I was recently asked by a Microsoft engineer why I am still asking questions about Windows XP when I should be using Vista, since it is better for various reasons. My response is below, which he called, "stunningly clear", and said that he had already forwarded it onto his executive... (More)

Jon first noticed red spots on Jonathan's tongue and soft palate while brushing his teeth.  Then we noticed bug bite/pimple-like spots on his knees and then Noah's knees.  Then Noah got more and more spots all around the edges of is diaper area and some on arms and legs. ... (More)

I started a new IT job recently, and the majority of the people there have Macs, so I have been bringing one home in order to learn more about them.  They have come a long way in 20 years, when I used to play on a Macintosh SE (with three floppy drives, a nice bonus so you didn't have... (More)

The Carnegie Science Center has a promotion that if you bring a snowball in on the first day of summer, they give you free admission.  Although this was the first year I'd heard of it, everyone else in Pittsburgh knew about it, too. We'd planned on getting there when it opened,... (More)

Yesterday, Noah poked a coat hanger into his eye.  All is well now, but I wanted to post the adventure.  My mom wrote up the story after my phone conversation with her, so I'm going to paste that here to save typing.  I'll interject where I want to add details or... (More)

I am in the middle of a non-direct red-eye flight from Seattle to Pittsburgh.  I was supposed to go to Charlotte, NC on the way, but USAir called(!) last night to tell me to come a half hour early to the airport (I was already there and had already checked in, and having a relaxing dinner... (More)