Like stealing candy from a kid

This article about the Halloween candy hierarchy got me thinking about my candy preferences as I rummage through my son’s Halloween candy and through the leftover candy that coworkers have brought to the office.
This year, my son Samuel went trick-or-treating with a school friend in a nearby subdivision. The friend’s parents must have better stamina than my wife and I, as Samuel netted much more candy this year than in previous years. I’d estimate he got 8-10 pounds–so much, in fact, that he let my wife take about a third of it to campus for her college students. I didn’t witness his sorting, so I’m not sure which types of candy he deemed undesirable enough to give away to her students.
In my very subjective opinion, Samuel received a smaller percentage of chocolate this year than in years past. What does this mean? I can think of three possible explanations: 1.) it’s a sign of the overall poor state of the economy, 2.) the average income of the neighborhood in which he trick-or-treated this year is slightly lower than in our subdivision, or 3.) my observation is total bullshit.
In any case, what this big candy haul means for me: I can steal quite a bit of Samuel’s candy before my theft becomes apparent. My first choice in Halloween candy is chocolate, especially Trix, Kit Kat and Snickers. But since there is a relatively small number of these chocolate treats, I have to be careful not to eat them all, lest my theft be detected early on. Typically, I eat these chocolates in the kitchen, often with Samuel watching TV in the next room, and then I hide the wrappers down in the trash can.
My second choice of candy is Smarties and SweeTarts. I like to crunch things (peanuts, ice, etc.), so I typically take these out when I’m downstairs alone after the kids have gone to bed. I eat them slowly on the couch while I use my computer or watch television. The absence of these candies is not so obvious, so I depleted Samuel’s supply of these crunchy treats yesterday.
Things go downhill for me pretty quickly after Smarties. Last night, I found myself eating some Starburst candy, and I suddenly realized it just wasn’t worth it. This morning, I moved Samuel’s bags of candy from the kitchen counter to the pantry, so I wouldn’t start eating less desirable candy just because it was under my nose.
You know, it’s kind of scary to realize how much thought I’ve put into all this.

The truth comes out

In the last few days, I’ve heard two stories of friendships tested or lost because of racists who usually know better than to express their views directly who were driven to do so by the imminent possible election of Barack Obama.
In the first instance, one of the members of my mother-in-law’s long-standing bunco group was ranting yesterday about electing a black man as president. My mother-in-law, the only liberal in the group, was quite shocked both by the expressed racism and by the passivity or agreement of the other group members.
In the other instance, a woman in our neighborhood who is a vocal Obama supporter was told that a group of her friends had been mocking her “gay-and-black loving” beliefs behind her back. When she confronted one of the offenders the primary offender, the woman tried to play it all down she admitted that she didn’t like Obama because of his race. The Obama supporter told my wife that she chose to end the friendship than to remain friends with a hypocritical racist.
This is a sad state of affairs.
UPDATE: My wife received and forwarded to me the email from the Obama supporter herself. I’ve corrected one line above based on first-hand info in the email. Another point in the email is the irony that Pflugerville is probably the most racially diverse suburb in the Austin area, with a high percentage of African-Americans. The racists seem to be living in the wrong neighborhood.

Usability win

I’ve probably assembled and installed well over a dozen ceiling fans in my adult life. Over the years, the manufacturers have improved the designs so that the fans work better and, more importantly, are easier to install. This past weekend, I installed a new Hampton Bay ceiling fan in the kids’ bathroom. Two features presumably keep it from rattling: rubber washers where the blades attach to their brackets and rubber bands around the light globes where they are held in place by screws.
But this fan had a feature that made a big alleviated probably the biggest installation headache: holding the blades in place while you screw the blade brackets into the body of the fan. Due to the light kit, the screw holes are awkward to access, plus you have to hold the blade in place, the fan in place and screw in the screws upside down. Inevitably for me, the first screw for each blade falls to the floor once or twice before I get it in (the second screw is much easier, since I no longer have to hold the blade in place).
The helpful feature of this fan: the screws that attach the blade brackets to the fan were already inserted into the blade brackets and held in place so that they would not come out. That meant I just had to hold the blade and screw them in. Very nice.

1500 grouchy geeks

I spent most of last week at the Agile 2008 conference, which was held at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto.
In my opinion, this hotel was an epic fail in regard to internet access.
The rooms offered only wired internet access with per-day charges (which is pretty standard for business hotels), but the jack in my room didn’t work. When I informed the desk of the problem, they sent someone up to give me a new network cable, which, of course, didn’t help. After that, I just didn’t bother with internet access in my room. I didn’t feel like trying to get it fixed and then having to pay for the access.
The hotel offered two wireless access networks in all the public areas of the hotel and conference center. Both networks were unsecured, which didn’t thrill me considering I was among 1500 geeks. But that was a secondary concern: the networks were both unreliable; sometimes I just couldn’t get an IP address from them, and other times, I could connect but not get any internet access.
Because of the situation in the rooms, every evening, the lobby was completely full of geeks using their laptops, including me (when the wireless worked).
You would think that business hotels and conference centers would be getting these things right by now.

As Not Seen On TV

Introducing the UroClub:

Attention Male Golfers! How many times has this happened? You arrive at the golf course, and soon you’re on to 18 holes with your best buddies. After drinking sport ades, water, beer, and whatever, you’re on the 3rd hole with no rest room in sight. There are no trees or bushes around and you just gotta go, what are you going to do?

Now if someone would only market the UroGear ShiftTM for those unexpected rush hour traffic jams after my morning coffee.

Adventures in stupid office building management

I need to get this off my chest.
Borland’s Austin office is located in a big multi-company office building. In the back of the building is a multi-story parking garage. The parking spaces on one side of each row are huge, and on the other side they are very narrow and designated as ‘Compact Cars Only’.
In the morning, the big spaces fill up first for two reasons: they’re on the side where the doors to the building are located, and they’re easy to park in. Of course, since those spaces aren’t marked ‘Big ass vehicles only’, people who get there early, regardless of car size, parks in those spaces.
Those who arrive later in the morning have two choices: park farther away in some of the other big spaces, or a little closer to the door in a narrow space. And of course, by that time, many people park in the closer narrow spaces regardless of the size of their car.
If I want to park in the narrow spaces (I drive a pretty small car, by the way), often the car that’s already there is right up against the dividing line or slightly over it. In this case, it would be impossible to park in the adjoining space without going over the next line. So, instead of leaving 3/4 of a space open, I just pull next to the car that’s already there, which puts me further over the next line. Sometimes, later arrivals continue my pattern of disregarding the lines to make reasonable sized parking spaces, and sometimes the next person leaves the remaining partial parking space on the other side of my car open in order to park in the next designated space (there’s a lesson about personality types in there somewhere).
Well, that was all fine and good before the building management started putting the stickers above on the cars that are parked over dividing lines. It pisses me off to no end that I’m parked over the line in an attempt to work around the management’s stupid arrangement of spaces, and then I get a hostile sounding note from the management for my parking.
I would complain to the building management or to my company’s facilities people, but it wouldn’t serve any productive purpose. I guess this type of ranting is what a blog is good for.

20 Worst Foods in America

Most of the items on this list are no surprise, such as the worst breakfast: Bob Evans Caramel Banana Pecan Cream Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes. However, the worst drink is from a surprising source:

Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo’d Power Smoothie (30 fl oz)

900 calories
10 g fat
183 g carbs
(166 g sugars)
Jamba Juice calls it a smoothie; we call it a milkshake. In fact, this beverage contains more sugar than two pints of Ben and Jerry’s Butter Pecan ice cream.

Via John Scalzi.