School Disclosures and other buracratic Nonsense

So the kids started school last month. With a new school year the mounds of stupid paper work for the parents to fill out comes. (I really hate it when a school teacher give me homework) The problem is that with every year my children advance in school the mound of paperwork increases exponentially. (there is probably some postulate, theorem or scientific theory to explain this but they did not teach it to me in school) These disclosures are becoming more condescending each year to the point that they are now insulting. This year I struck back.

Case 1. My child's high school has created a new Draconian attendance policy. The largest issue I have with the policy is that way it is written. If my child misses school, I have to provide and excuse notice and a justification for that excuse. My fundamental problem with this is that I am the father if I say my child is excused no further justification for the absence is required. My law with my children supersede any policy, law that exist within the school. I crossed out the attendance policy provision on every disclosure with a little note that we would not comply and sent it back. My son said he got some interesting looks and comments from the teachers.

Case 2. The schools have been providing a "Bus Disclosure" that needed to be signed prior to my children riding the bus to school. This is by far one of the most insulting documents I have ever been given by a school. It is written in such a condescending tone and states things that should be common sense as if it is some great revelation. I have been able to ignore this document for 3 years now with no consequences this year my daughter went to get on the bus to come home and they would not let her on because I had not signed the document. I still would not sign their document so I made my own. It went like this

"I give permission for my daughter to ride the bus. I promise that she will be a good little girl. I understand that if she is not she may not be able to ride the bus any more"

My wife said my note sounded sarcastic.... I was a bit disappointed I was going for condescending. They let her ride the bus after receiving my note

I know they are small and petty things but I am getting tired of government agencies creating a form for every problem and acting like we are 5 years old. Next year I am going to write my own disclosures for the teachers to sign. Feel free to give any suggestions for my document.

Anniversary of my 39th birthday

Today I celebrate the 1st Anniversary of my 39th birthday. Ive always said that age is just a number and it does not really matter but I just cant bring myself to say for........ nope not even going to write it.

Its weird to think that in another 10 years I could have kids married and will have the option to retire and start another career. My life is good and I plan to be around for 50 to 60 years more. Thanks to all my well wishers and friends.

Camping Again

Really, I went camping again. I slept in a tent (with an air mattress), the toilets did not flush, the showers were a bit scary, and I did this for a whole week. I went with our 12 year old scouts to the Bear Lake Aquatics Base. Last time I was there I was 12 and it was my first scout camp. Not much has changed but they now have a mess hall and WI-FI for the scoutmasters so that is cheating a little bit. The lake was nice when it was not hot it was windy. I think I am done camping for the year. There is winter camp but I am trying to get the leaders to schedule it in May or move it to St George.

Old Friends and Sentiment

Today I Ran into an a friend that I grew up with, it has been 20 years since Ive seen him. (note: the fact that I can say something happened 20 years ago and it does not involve me learning to walk, scoring a touchdown or some other youthful memory is disconcerting but that is another blog for another time.) This friend is someone that I admired while growing up. He was a hard worker and a high achiever, He had a positive influence on my life that is still part of who I am today. We were only able to spend about 5 minutes catching up and chances are I will not see him again for a long time. I realized how little contact I have now with those who influenced me when I was younger and it seems really sad that they may or may not know the influence they had on my life. We all have people in our lives that influence us to be better people, it is important to express gratitude to them when you have the chance. My friend probably still doesn't know the positive effect he has had on my life, and it would have been difficult to convey in a 5 minute conversation, but I certainly had opportunities before today.

"If I have seen far it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants" Take time to thank the giants in your life you never know if you will have an opportunity again.

Challenges in Technology

We have a fairly new computer and the other day the hard drive started to crap out. Fortunately there was 14 days left on the warranty. The bad news was we lost all of information on that drive because HP could not recover any data. Many years of pictures, Marilyn's recipe book and who knows what else is now gone. I know about backing data up but did not do it as it should be done. Maybe its time to look at a drobo I do not think I want to trust an online service yet. I love technology but sometimes it bites you in the butt. The moral of the story back up... especially those things that really matter.

Follow up on the fish

So in my last post I blogged about killing 2 of my son's fish. A new chapter in the fish saga started last night. Kyle was looking at the tank and said "I think we need to clean this again" Then an excited yell. There are baby fish in here, It looks like we have about 100 baby fish in the tank. There are 2 adult fish standing guard and keeping the others at bay. We now have to separate the babies from the rest of the fish so they do not get eaten.....

Nate do you still want me to take care of your cat?

Somtimes I am too Helpful

So I decided to help my son clean his fish tank. All was well until I started refilling it. All of the sudden Alex said "dad the fish are starting to swim upside down" I looked at the thermometer and realized the water was too hot. We started draining the tank quickly and cooling the water down. When it was all said and done we lost 2 fish but saved the rest. I had to tell Kyle what I had done when he got home. I'm not sure I will help with the tank again. I almost cleaned it too well.

"Camping"

I do not really like to camp. Roughing it for me is a motel 6. Two years ago they made me the Varsity scout leader in the ward. I want to be a good scout leader and I figure I need to camp at least once a year. For my first summer camp as a scout leader I decided that a back packing trip to Grand Daddy lake in the Unitas was just the ticket. I went there with my dad on a scout trip when I was 14 and remembered it was fun. All the info I read said it was a moderate hike (lying jerks) I made it, but after almost collapsing on the trail on the hike in I decided the following year a change of pace was in order.
This year we went to Jordanelle State Park (http://www.utah.com/stateparks/jordanelle.htm)
The Park is beautiful and about 15 minutes out of Park City. It was still pretty rough we were able to drive right to the camp site and had to carry the gear about 5 feet to set it up. There were flushable toilets and showers (much better than bury or carry). There was also a sign for WI-fi.(had to draw the line there we were suppose to be camping after all)We had good food, good times and hit the weather window perfectly. It started raining as we hit the highway on the way out.

After these two experiences I can conclude the following
Backpacking
Long walk with all your gear uphill (both ways)
Bathroom in the woods
Trail food
No air Mattress
= Bad Camp

Car Camping
Easy to cary gear
Toilets that flush
Good Food (bacon with every meal)
Air Mattress
= Good Camp

I know there are scouters out there that are thinking that I am a wimp. I say to them that I am wise beyond my years and have learned a fundamental element to true happiness

The Day the Music Died

I love music and it is a love that I am trying to help my kids discover also. They all have MP3 players and they use them constantly. I have one as well and I cant believe that I used to use something as primitive as a record or cassette tape.(my parents even had an 8 track) For you kids out there google it so you can see how pathetic portable music use to be.

So a tragedy happened at our home about a week ago. Alex comes to me and says that the screen on his Zune cracked. He was devastated, he has always taken good care of it, never takes it anywhere without its cover, and it has fewer scratches and dings than mine does. With the LCD cracked it was impossible to see anything, it would still play and hook to the PC but its a Zune not a shuffle not being able to see and pick what you want is kind of pointless. After spending a few minutes with Google and discussing it with him we decided to try to repair it ourselves, figuring that it was already broken and we didn't have anything to loose.

Using eBay to do some scavenging we found a player that was non functional but had a working screen and possibly a working hard disk that we could sell at a latter time. We bought it for $23. While waiting for its delivery My zune decided to crap out. One minute I lost 1/2 my music the next the player was giving me an error message and would not reset. Based on what I had learned I decided that my hard drive probably died.

On Friday the Zune arrived with the tools that I ordered. We had what we needed to attempt the repair. After an hour Alex's Zune was functioning again. I decided to see if a hard drive would fix mine. After another hour my zune was good as new. I am pretty impressed with myself, I do not normally attempt this kind of thing.

Broken zune from eBay $23. Tools needed for the repair $19. Bringing 2 Zunes back from the dead in one night Pri..... well not priceless but pretty darn cool if I say so myself.

I'm glad that in my house we do not have 2 30 gig paperweights. Props to http://www.rapidrepair.com/ who had great guides to help with the process.

If I was a good blogger I would have taken pictures of the process, but I forgot and I am not going to take them apart again just for my blog.

You put your Chocolate in my Peanut butter

I cam across this clip and it amused me so I thought I would share. Star Trek and Monty Python two great tastes that taste great together.




And Yes I know I am "such a geek" I gave up on being cool when I had kids.

Still figuring out the blog thing

Many of the posts I write do not get published. I will get an idea and start the post with the intent of fleshing it out and polishing it latter and do not seem to get around to it. So after my last angry blog post I reviewed my draft posts. the titles were as follows "Death of Customer Service", "Death of Common Sense" and "Death of a Salesman"....

OK so I made that last one up I realized that if I kept it up I would have to change the name of my blog to "The Cranky Bastard Old Man" or "Get Off My Lawn" So here in the Candy Store I will strive to be a bit more positive.... I should be more frequent also but I am still working that out too.

I have a friend that is a programmer his email tag is great "I want to change the world but they will not give the source code" I would love to help him change the world so if anyone out there has access source code I know a great programmer that would love to change it. He has even agreed to let me work on the design team

The Death of Responsibility

OK so I am going political again. In Utah the Legislature is in session. It always makes me uneasy when they are in session and do not have enough to do. Today's debate on HB353 was incredibility frustrating. It is labeled truth in advertising but it is really a bill aimed at regulating the sale of video games. The video game industry has been working very hard to keep M rated games out of the hands of minors. In Utah secret shopper stings have reveled that retailers have a compliance rate of %94. So how do our leaders reward their efforts, they pass a bill that opens them up to a civil lawsuit if one of their employees breaks the rules and sells a M rated game to someone under 17. I was especially embarrassed by Sen. Chris Butters repeating the story of Devon Moore, a kid that killed 3 police officers and then blamed the video game for his actions.

Many retailers take a pledge with the ESRB that they will not sell M rated games to minors. The easiest way for them to avoid the liability from this bill is simply not to take the pledge. The government is stepping in to regulate an industry that is already making many efforts to regulate themselves.

It is pathetic that we can not hold people accountable for their actions in our society. If someone kills another person nothing made them do it. They did it and need to be made to account. It is absolutely reasonable to expect parents to be parents and regulate what their children buy and play. The government needs to stop trying to save us from ourselves and allow people to be held accountable for their actions.

So I broke a rule and blogged angry but it is time for us to wake up and let our government know that they need to butt out of our lives and spend their time solving real problems

Meet the New Boss Same as the Old Boss

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

I think John Stewart is great. Its funny how we often do not realize our own contradiction. I have hope that there will be good changes in our country but its interesting how the same message can be taken differently depending on who says it. Now if we as a people could just get angry enough to start voting incumbent congressmen out of office I know that true change and reform are coming to our country

Confessions of a Manly Man

I play video games, big manly video games, love the Halo, Rainbow 6, Crakdown, and Oblivion. Games with, guns, swords, rocket launchers, cars and other manly stuff. Oh and explosions love things that are explodey.......... So there is this game called Viva Pinata and I have to blame it for the reason I have not updated my blog for a while. This is a great game for kids. there are no guns or explosions or even a car crash. The most violent thing that happens is breaking open a pinata, they don't even bleed they spill candy on the ground. Its a great kids game........... So here we go my name is Dave and I like Viva Pinata. There I admitted it the game is a blast and is monopolizing my gaming time. This is my desert themed garden. I have made 600K in chocolate coins so far and I will be making an Arctic garden soon, I am trying to decide if I can pull off a jungle themed garden as well......... Game fly has just shipped Fallout 3 so I will be back to shooting and blowing things up soon enough but until then I need to get a couple of Vulchurros

Palette-Swap Ninja - The Viva Pinata Song.mp3

Special thanks to Dan Amrich of Palette Swap Ninja for allowing me to use his song on my blog http://paletteswapninja.com/