KodyMyers.NET

Well another beautiful Labor Day has drawn to a close and for the first time in a few years, we didn’t do much but clean the house and enjoy some quiet time together as a family. With gas prices as they are, I’m sure we weren’t the only family to spend the holiday at home instead of taking a trip somewhere.

Besides, the closer it gets to baby time, the more miserable Tabitha becomes. I’d hate to try to drag her out somewhere at a time like this. She’s reached the point where she’s ready to have it over with, and it could very well be soon, seeing as Kristopher came about 4 weeks early. We even joked a bit about going into labor on Labor Day.

As for me, I’m only a week and a half into classes, and already I was welcoming the three-day weekend. As my last post so accurately predicted, this semester will indeed be an exercise in time management. For the curious, here’s a quick rundown of my classes this semester:

• CSC 232 (Programming in Visual Basic) – A programming class! I’ve wanted to learn VB for a while. Now I get to learn it for credit! For the record, I have never messed up a semester during which I took a programming class.
• CSC 301 (Foundations of Computer Science I) – This basically boils down to being another math class (discrete math, to be exact), but at least it’s more directly relevant to programming than calculus.
• CSC 405 (Computer Architecture) – This course actually couples quite well with my CSC 301 class, but it’s run with the assumption that its students have already completed CSC 301. Thankfully, the same professor teaches both classes this semester, and I’m not the only one taking both. This course comes with a lab where we get to design and build electrical circuits based on binary logic.
• PSY 180 (General Psychology) – A relentlessly boring lecture class. I’ve taken it before, now I’m taking it again. We’ll see if I make it to the end of the semester this time.

Almost every day of the week, I have a two- to three-hour gap between two of my classes. I’ve already found that these gaps are great for finishing most of my homework, leaving very little work to take time doing at home. I hope this trend continues after our little girl is born, because I doubt I’ll be able to concentrate on things as well with a newborn in the house. Besides, who would want to work on homework when there’s a new baby to hold?

It’s been stressful trying to settle into this new routine, but hopefully soon I’ll find my rhythm. All I know is that I’m am not planning on letting this semester slip away from me like so many before. Making the Dean’s List last semester certainly helped boost my confidence in myself that I can do this stuff and do it well. I should have graduated years ago, and kick myself every time I think of all the time I squandered. At least I seem to be back on track now.

Well it seems that our household continues to get busier as the family ramps up toward a new baby and I prepare for another semester of classes at Murray State. I used to find all kinds of time to write near the beginning of the summer, but anymore it seems that I’m barely able to manage an update a month.

I suppose I’ll start my recap with our most exciting news: Kristopher is now potty trained! I find myself unable to form the words to express how proud of him we are right now. It’s certainly a notable milestone for us all. Tabitha and I are also very excitied that we won’t have to touch another stinky diaper until late September, when we get to start the entire process anew.

/sigh. Such is life. :)

I’m also happy to report that Tabitha’s pregnancy is progressing steadily with no known complications, for which we are very thankful. I have great difficulty trying to fathom the discomfort of carrying a child in the womb, much less the discomfort when the final trimester falls in the hot, humid summer months characteristic of Western Kentucky. She’s kept a positive attitude in light of it all and remains a shining example of how deep down, women truly are stronger than men in many respects.

So what have I been doing as she sits there and suffers? Goofing off as much as I can get away with, of course! I’ve been spending these last few weeks of free time trying to extract every possible trace of fun I can before I end up locking myself back down into academic mode.

I’m already quite anxious to get back into class. I’ve enjoyed my abundance of free time, but time away from school certainly doesn’t put a degree in my hands any quicker.

I’ll be trying out a new work/school balance this semester, with the recent change in my work schedule being the main difference. Last semester, my work hours were concentrated entirely on Saturdays and Sundays. I now work three eight-hour days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings.

Spreading my hours over three days instead of two should help me better cope with work, but it will also force me to manage my time more effectively. I already miss having those five days off work in a row, but I certainly enjoy having my weekends back as compensation.

I seem to remember mentioning Kristopher’s terrible itchy, puffy, red skin rash in my last post, which we had all hoped was just an isolated outbreak. Regrettably, it has come back with a vengeance, despite treatments of Benadryl and prescription steroids from the doctor. Try as we may, we have yet to determine the cause of it. We still don’t know if it is a contact-based allergic reaction, an allergic reaction to some type of food or additive, or something else entirely.

All I know is that it has been causing us all a disparaging amount of grief. We humbly ask for your prayers as we try to deal with this on top of everything else going on. It’s making Kristopher very miserable and just getting him to take his medicine has been an uphill battle. We’d give anything just to somehow relieve him of it, as it pains us to see him suffer.

As always, I hope those of you who visit this site are doing well. I know I don’t stay in contact with most of you as well as I feel I should, and for that I apologize. I suppose I continue to write these news posts in an attempt to reach you all at once, because I’m lazy like that. :)

I never really realized just how vital the internet is to my daily life until I was browsing around and stumbled on the last page of the Internet. It’s difficult to describe the resulting feeling of emptiness. I mean, I really expected more out there – especially considering what I pay for broadband.

I guess I just need to get over it and find something else to do now…

Edit:
It looks as though the link no longer shows what it used to, but you can still check out some of the other zany links on Google when you search for the last page of the internet.

I’m really beginning to tire of keeping up with the 50 or so different usernames and passwords required to access the various web sites and software packages I use. It seems that every site nowadays requires a login to access even the most insignificant content. Sadly, services such as BugMeNot have provided little relief for this growing annoyance.

What complicates this problem is the advice given by the majority of online security specialists:

• Never use the same username/password combination on more than one site.
• Change your passwords often.
• Make your passwords as complex as you can by adding numbers and symbols.
• Never keep your usernames/passwords written on paper or a digital document

Yeah.

So in order for me to protect myself as fully as possible, I need to keep track of 50+ different sets of obfuscated credentials for 50+ different sites without the luxury of writing them down anywhere, and then change them at least once a month!?

No, thank you. I can just picture my brain’s reaction.

“So Kody,” you may ask, “why don’t you just use one of the many AutoFill tools freely available from various web browsers and toolbars?” My answer is simple: Lack of mobility. What happens when I am using a public terminal or a computer in a lab or at a friend’s house? By relying on AutoFill tools at home, my ability to remember my credentials while away from my computer would atrophy.

And what happens when I let someone else use my computer to look something up? I never check any of those boxes that say, “Always keep me logged in” or “Remember my password,” so why would I want AutoFill software to automatically insert my personal information into a web form regardless of the user? [See comments below for an explanation on why this was scratched. --km]

As more and more sites require verification, the deep wisdom of Microsoft’s Passport service is becoming all too clear. I’ll admit I was wary of Passport in the beginning, given all the privacy concerns of entrusting access to multiple websites to a single entity (especially when that entity is Microsoft). However, I am finding it more and more tempting to embrace such a service if it means that I don’t have to keep track of dozens of username/password combinations.

Unfortunately, even if I wanted to take advantage of Microsoft’s Passport, it’s not supported on 99% of the sites I would need it for. Even more unfortunate, no other comparable service exists. I’m starting to think that the web is in dire need of a universal credential service with the stigmas associated with Microsoft’s “we want to own everything” corporate image.

So how do intelligent people manage their login information without resorting to the practices of the overtly paranoid? Am I just missing something here? I know there are various password management services available online and for PDAs, but are they actually useful?

I don’t know. Maybe this is just another incentive to do away with usernames and passwords altogether in favor of biometric identification. All I know is that if things don’t improve soon, I may have to resort to shoving a few 1GB sticks of RAM up my nose and hope it’s compatible.

[Editor’s note: For purposes of contextual coherence, it may be useful to know that this post originally appeared on the discontinued Myers Family Journal before being folded into this blog. -KM]

Well I know it’s kinda late, but I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Independence Day celebration. My 4th of July weekend was especially nice because it’s the first one in quite some time that I didn’t spend working in a restaurant. Every year, during the first weeks of July, Briggs & Stratton shuts down to allot time for major maintenance and repairs. As a wonderful consequence, all the employees get to enjoy a nice summer vacation. I have to admit, that place really knows how to take care of their people.

Of course, there always has to be a setback. Our septic system suffered a major backup last week due to roots growing in one of the pipes. For a time we were unable to flush the toilets more than a few times a day. This made things quite uncomfortable for me and Kristopher, and absolutely unbearable for Tabitha. Fortunately, we were able to get the system fixed and life is finally getting back to normal. There are still ditches in our backyard where we need to lay some pipe, but at least everything inside the house works properly again, which is a huge relief. At least I learned a little bit about how toilets and septic systems work.

Anyway, now that Tabitha has a website to show off her creations, she seems more determined than ever to churn them out as quickly as possible. It seems she can’t work on a project for more than a couple of days without yearning for a new one. She’s made some beautiful things and her skills continue to improve with each endeavor.

As for me, I’ve been spending a few hours outside this summer, which I’m quite proud of. There were summers in the past when I rarely saw the light of day. My pale complexion became a testament to my nocturnal lifestyle. Though I’ve went fishing a couple of times, most of my time outside has been spent mowing lawns and working on various home improvement projects. I’ve managed to get a decent tan, but sadly, I haven’t been able to reduce my weight to more optimal levels. :-( Oh well.

I suppose I should mention that Kristopher suffered a terrible allergic reaction on the night of June 27th. We still haven’t determined the cause, but it scared us so much that we ended running him straight to the emergency room. His chest, back, and neckline were covered with itchy red blotches, he felt hot to the touch, and his breath came in wheezes. Some Benadryl cleared it right up, and it has yet to return, so we’re thinking that it was just a strange reaction to something he’ll hopefully never come in contact with again.

Anyway, he’s fine and continues to get more excited about the arrival of his new baby sister, whom we still have yet to choose a name for. That would be mostly my fault, since Tabitha primarily chose Kristopher’s name, it has been left to me to choose a name for this one (pending approval, of course). I was thinking of continuing with the K name theme, but after examining all the girl names that begin with K, I’m not so sure I want to take that route. Choosing names has always been a difficult process for me. I have a hard enough time naming my computers and role-playing characters, much less an actual child who has to live with the resulting consequences.

And I thought my summer away from classes was going to be nice and relaxed…