Daley Ponderings

I am now on vacation and so can spare a few minutes to type up the notes that have been hanging in my pocket for a while.  I will apologize to my readers for making them wait so long, but I will not feel guilty.  Blogging is something most mothers in the history of the world did not have on their list of responsibilites and I will not let it grab a top priority from other important things.  (More)

This is the traditional Christmas breakfast in the Daley family.  It is too good to only have once a year, and I often make it for potluck brunches.  No one knows where the "Presnor" part comes from. The original recipe from Jon's mom has plain monterey jack cheese, but the pepper jack gives it a superb flavor that's not too spicy even for my non-spicy friends.

Eggs Presnor

6 eggs, beaten
1 c. milk
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 lb pepper jack cheese, shredded
3 oz cream cheese
8 oz cottage cheese
3 Tbs butter, melted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 c. flour
chives and parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 325.  Mix eggs, milk, sugar, salt.  Add cheeses and butter.  Mix
well. *Can be made ahead to this point.* Mix baking powder and flour, add to wet
ingredients and mix.  Pour in greased 9x13 pan. Bake 40 min until set and beginning
to brown on top. Garnish.

It has been annoying me that the "tagcloud" on the side panel has the largest word "water", (it sizes the words based on the count the frequency of word usage in our most recent posts), but here I go again, adding to the count.

We had a bunch of water in our basement again, this time definitely coming up from the floor drain.  I have figured out more how the system works as time goes on, and I think there is just one question left to answer regarding the whole puzzle.

 (More)

And we just discovered that there is yet another Pittsburgh tax we didn't know about, and maybe even a couple different taxes we may or may not owe.  I called Pittsburgh to cancel our estimated tax forms that they have continued to mail to us, even though we now live outside of Pittsburgh.  In the course of the conversation, he said that we would probably still have to pay the payroll expense tax.  I asked what that was, and he said, oh, that's the new tax that replaced the mercantile tax.  I said I hadn't heard of either of those before... (More)

As I wrote earlier, I use worklog to keep track of my time.  I use some other scripts to help manage worklog's output, and now that I made one of the scripts work even nicer today, I figured I should post them.  (More)

I am working on a Vista machine for a client, and was trying to update things - the firewall was turned off, windows update hadn't been run in a while, etc.  Windows Defender was complaining about not updating for the last 8 months, and currently giving me an error of 0x8024402c.  I searched around on the internet, and found people talking about uninstalling defender, restarted the BITS service, running windows update manually, etc.  None of that worked - all reported hexadecimal code errors. (More)

I have been working on an interesting project for a customer of mine - and as is with lots of his projects, end up seeing lots of internet headlines while working on the projects.  This particular project involves tracking what things people are talking about and searching for.  One source of the results comes from google trends, which shows the current top 100 most frequent searches, as well as historical trends.

Lots of searches that show up on the top 10 list are things that I wouldn't ever search for (I am not too surprised based on the content (It seems that a substantial number of people sit and watch tv and type in phrases that people say), but the format of the searches is interesting too).  I noticed today that the search frequency for green bean casserole was on the top 100 list, and that it has a sharp peak right around now each year, and then a smaller peak at Christmas time.  I've only had a couple different kinds of green bean casseroles in my life, and I don't recall any of them being very good.  (More)

I have heard people debate about whether not being able to hear a child playing is worse than hearing one that is really loud.  I can tell you that I would take either one over waking up to sounds of water splashing around.  (More)

I have been quite behind in my magazine reading, and this morning I caught up to August (2008 - at some points, it has been necessary to specify the year when saying how far behind I am).

There is an interesting article in Dr. Dobbs, by Scott Ambler, regarding methods of estimating costs of software development, and whether the typical, fixed price model is even ethical. (More)

Solve:

Problem 1: If you have 100 gallons of water entering a 10 gallon sink with a partially clogged drain at 4 gallons per minute, how long will it take for the water to spill over the top and how many cardboard boxes get wet?  Extra credit: how many gallons of water will be left on the floor, assuming it doesn't all go down the floor drain?  Your answer should contain references to R (the occasional rest periods of the water filter), D (the distance from the sink to the drain), H (the height of the drain compared to the sink, hint: it is a positive number), S (the surface area of the basement), and T (the tools and other equipment in boxes not yet unpacked).

Problem 2: If the person who owns the equipment in problem 1 above installs shelving to raise the height of all of the stored equipment, will he be able to protect all of the tools from future damage?

Problem 3: Essay question: Why should you never leave a rubber glove drying on the edge of a sink?

Grammy and Papa bought a playground for their backyard, "In memory of Isaac and in honor of all [their] grandchildren."  Two weekends ago, we went to New Hampshire to help them assemble it.  It was a fun and busy weekend.  The playground is big and immensely fun.  Even though we were not able to finish it that weekend, it was assembled enough for the boys to clamber all around.  Jonathan said, "This is the most fun thing ever!"

All the playground pictures are on our pictures page.

The boys on the Rollicking Roundabout:

Latest picture from Papa; they did more work last weekend:

The memorial plaque:

...is going great, but has its challenges.  I'm probably not the only one to brush someone's teeth with one hand while bouncing a crying baby with the other.  But bedtime is pretty much the only time of high demand from all at once.  Jonathan is great about waiting and about helping Faith to wait (singing, bouncing);  Noah needs more practice, but he's good sometimes.  Although just now, he brought over Faith's bouncy seat so he could sit in my lap (instead of crying about not being able to sit in my lap while I was holding her.)  (More)

We signed up for a new phone number for dealing with rental stuff, and bought the numbers to go on the sign today.  Three hours later, we got our first call.  Crazy.  I haven't gotten around to getting it on Craig's List yet or anything. (More)

On a Wednesday, two days past my due date, the midwives scheduled me for post-dates testing at the hospital the next week. At first these only consist of a non-stress test (monitoring to be sure the baby's heart rate increases when he moves) and an ultrasound to confirm adequate amniotic fluid levels. However, that is a big "only" to me and I did not want to have to go in to the hospital to do that.  (More)