Daley Ponderings

Don't ever name your child the same name as you. It confuses everyone, from doctors to insurance carriers to airlines. USAir and United won't let me check-in online any more, since it can't figure out what to do with Jonathan and me. We both have different frequent flyer numbers, but it is... (More)

Last night we had a spectacular and very close thunderstorm roll though. The lightning actually struck a transformer down the street, cutting our power at around 10:30. We were in bed, but Jon got up to turn off the computers - the UPS only lasts a few minutes with two computers and a monitor... (More)

I got a notification from a credit bureau today saying that a new account had been opened by: Verizon Pen, PO BOX 165018, COLUMBUS, OH 43216. Since I haven't changed phone service since last year, it seemed odd that there would be a new account from Verizon.My mortgage company had their backup... (More)

Based on an excruciating headache Wednesday afternoon, October 12, that did not go away, Jon and I headed to West Penn Hospital Emergency Room at 10:30pm. A friend came to the house to watch Jonathan while he slept. Here is an aside - it was so good for Jonathan that he did not come, he would... (More)

Thursday morning, we drove up to Jon's Aunt Janet's place in Hamilton, Ontario. We stopped at "our" Wal-Mart at the two hour mark for a bathroom break and to buy some snacks. (I think we've stopped there every time we go that way - it must just be at a good break point.) Going through customs... (More)

There have been a number of things we wanted to work better on the Flying Junior, but mostly because it is hard to find a sailboat store in Pittsburgh, we hadn't gotten around to it.The wind spinner is fairly old, and after the capsize, didn't spin as well as it used to, and in the process of... (More)

On Saturday evening we were at a reception for a friend's baptism and Jonathan and I headed outside for some play. It was dusk and the fireflies started appearing. I caught some to show Jonathan and he loved them. Then to my surprise, he said, "I got it, firefly!" and sure enough, he had... (More)

We already know that Jonathan can match shapes, since he is successful at playing with shape sorters. Now I know that Jonathan can match colors if he wants to. We were playing with his sheet of alphabet stickers, and he took four I's off to put on his hands. Later, he wanted to put them back,... (More)

I wrote a random signature generator for Pine, my email client. It worked great for a number of years, but with a recent upgrade of Pine, it started having trouble a couple of times a day, where the signature would be correctly rotated, but Pine would hang prior to sending the message, and would... (More)

While looking up information on the Pennsylvania Use Tax (which is another story for another day) I found a regulation that states that tourists in PA who stay longer than 7 days are required to pay Use Tax on items that they brought into the commonwealth and used while they were here. How... (More)

I called my friend Alissa today and her four and a half year old son William answered. I said hi and asked for his mom and he said, "Well, she's downstairs right now, but you can talk to me and tell me what you want to say and I can tell her." It was not that long ago that he would only say,... (More)

Jonathan has an Italian board book that Aunt Janet brought him from Italy, which I stumble through as best I can. After I read a book, he will usually turn through the pages again himself. This time, he babbled in a more singsong voice, unlike his usual talking. I really think he was trying out... (More)

As we were cleaning up from my birthday party, Heather noticed a police car in our back alley. It turns out there were two brothers (one is a self-proclaimed starving musician) who live in Pittsburgh, but were driving a New York plated car, without headlights, circling our neighborhood at... (More)

For those of you who have successfully installed Mercury's Test Director , and have it die suddenly, you need to check the IIS/NTFS permissions. ( Note, for those of you asking questions, you should read all four pages of comments - there are various questions and answers given throughout the... (More)

Last night, our four-year-old friend William was telling us about the state of their basement playroom. "You don't want to go downstairs, it's a disastrophe!" (More)