the kids are well.

(don’t worry, the update is not quite over yet!)

Here is Callum, doing some reading on the couch (probably because he was told to, to be honest! – but hey, reading is reading) in his pajamas in a quilt that Yvonne crocheted. Callum is in second grade, and progressing well. He’s big into math, science and music, which is good. Even more than these things, he’s into LEGO… for Christmas we got him the LEGO Hobby Train, which features 30 different models that you can build from one set, and he’s a big fan of that. The kit comes with one set of instructions for an attractive red and white train, and there are 29 (and possibly more) instructions that can be downloaded online.

Mia is huge into music, horses, Webkinz, horses, superheroes, and horses. She has a massive imagination – one minute she’s Hawk Girl, the next she’s Storm from X-Men, and occasionally she turns into a pegasus unicorn and flies around the house. That’s right… more than just a plain ol’ pegasus or unicorn… we’re talking a horse with a unicorn horn and pegasus wings. She is quite mighty. She’s been doing kindergarten classes; writing, colors, simple math, and the like. She also loves to read. So far, she’s not sure if she would like to grow up to be a doctor, a dentist, or “one of those check-out people at the grocery store”. Lately she’s been leaning toward the latter, but eh, she’s only four, and the grocery store is one of her favorite places – mostly because she gets to eat what she calls “stamples”!

Lachlan has started to speak, albeit a bit behind schedule, which may be because he heard no English during the first six months of his life in Taiwan. Regardless, he’s a good chap, with boundless energy. He can play a never ending game of fetch (although don’t worry, I don’t yell “fetch!” when I throw the ball for him to chase after).

that’s it for now! Callum and I are off to music class.

so if only because I don’t really have anything of interest to say right now, I thought I’d post another short story. This one I wrote back in 2007 for a Machine of Death story competition that I didn’t win, so before the CD-R I have it saved on cracks and I lose it forever, I’m putting it up here! Problems with the story, aside from, you know, problems with the writing itself, include the fact that the plot is too similar to that of the movie Minority Report (which in my defense I’ve never seen, so while writing this story I had no idea) and also the word CRACK!, but I’m not gonna change anything at this point.

so if you care to, you may read it here.

for Christmas and New Years the gang and I are in Johnson City, Tennessee, visiting Yvonne’s brother Robert. When we first got here we got to play in the snow a bit – it was Lachlan’s first time seeing the stuff – but it quickly melted and since then it’s been pretty mild.

as far as life is concerned, things are status quo, and the new year is almost upon us. 2009 has been a pretty good year – the kids are great, Yvonne has been doing well, work is good (we had several successful releases of Blackbaud Direct Marketing this year, plus I got PMP and ScrumMaster certified!) and I’ve been getting back into playing and producing music, which has been a blast and I feel has enriched my life.

and that’s it for the annual recap – at least ’til this time next year!

I find it sort of interesting that when you do a Google image search for Brian Crawford, the first image that comes up related to me in any way, is a comic I drew for work. The second is also a comic I drew for work. The third is a comic I did for Office Offline.

the first image that comes back with an actual image of myself, is this one, image #91 on the list.

I need to get some more pictures of myself, out there.

perhaps the most annoying dialog in the world is the Windows XP (and potentially elsewhere) dialog that pops up once your computer has finished installing automatic updates from Microsoft. It’s a really good idea to get automatic updates from Microsoft, by the way. If they find some insidious bug that needs fixing before someone uses it as an exploit and hacks your machine (and there are quite a few of those), they can fix it and get it up and installed on your machine as quickly as possible.

the dialog reads:

Updating your computer is almost complete. You must restart your computer for the updates to take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now?

your options are limited to “Restart Now” and “Restart Later”. If you click “Restart Now”, of course, your computer immediately reboots, which you might not want to do right at that second. If you click “Restart Later”, your machine waits 10 minutes, then pops up the dialog again. Then you have to click “Restart Later” again, wait another 10 minutes, click it again, and so on. If you’re not at your computer at the time (maybe you went to get a drink or something), there’s a timer that counts down, and if you don’t click on “Restart Later” during that time, the machine shuts down and reboots.

I can of course see why Microsoft would do this (see above where I talk about wanting to get problems patched as soon as possible so that you don’t get your machine hacked), but there’s nothing more annoying than having this dialog pop up every 10 minutes while you’re trying to work on something, and you just can’t make the darn thing go away.

for those of you in this situation, here’s what you can do. When you get this dialog, you can go ahead and turn off your Automatic Updates. The dialog will stop showing up, and you can get back to your work (or wasting time, as the case may be). Then, at your leisure, you can go ahead and restart your machine. Here’s how:

1. Click on Start > Run
2. Enter: services.msc (I’m guessing the msc stands for Microsoft Configuration)
3. Find “Automatic Updates” under the Name column
4. Right click on it, and select “Stop”
5. You’re done!

hope this is helpful to whoever might be reading this, as figuring out how to do this, was to me…

edit: As per the conversation below, I should point out that this doesn’t permanently stop the automatic updates. Once you reboot the machine, they turn back on at startup… so as long as you remember to do the reboot once you’re done with whatever you’re working on, the automatic updates will continue.

at a party last night I met a pretty tough looking guy who, in conversation, mentioned that he had just returned from his final tour of duty as an infantryman in Iraq, and was now working for a pesticide company here in town. When I pressed him for details about what it was like over there, he was unable to respond, and tears started forming in his eyes. I stopped him, shook his hand, and thanked him for all he had done for the United States, and for Iraq. It wasn’t the kind of answer I’d been expecting, but it was an answer nonetheless.

the two eldest kids and I are in Folkston, Georgia, Gateway to the Okefenokee Swamp. We’re here staying at the Roadmaster’s Lodge, a small one-room hotel that was built in 1889 to serve as the office of the Roadmaster in the Folkston area. Yes, we drove four and a half hours to come watch some trains. Here are the kids watching a passing freight – you will notice that they each have portable DVD players for when there aren’t any trains to watch – yes, I came prepared!

the town of Folkston has a really great Railfan Platform with a radio scanner (to hear the engineers talking to one another), picnic tables, power outlets, and yes, Wi-Fi Internet. When we got there there were already three or four railfans down by the tracks with their cameras and tripods, taking pictures. Most of the trains have been CSX mixed freights or intermodals, with a few Amtrak passenger consists thrown in.

one cool application I downloaded this morning is the ATCS Monitor, a railroad data, CTC monitor and display. It shows real-time data of where trains are located north and south along the line, so we can figure out when trains will be passing by Folkston, and from which direction they’ll be coming. Here’s an example of what it looks like.

we’ll be heading back to Charleston tomorrow morning, after another noisy night (yes, the trains keep coming through all through the night, which would perhaps be annoying normally, but hey – that’s why we’re here). The kids have had a great time so far! And, well… so have I!

this week, our good friend Nafees is in town. Last year, Nafees won a SciTech Academy Award for his work with fluid dynamics, in particular the work he did for the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (which I haven’t actually seen yet – I guess I should). As such, he has been getting quite a bit of local press here in Charleston (having graduated from Academic Magnet High School and the College of Charleston, where we took classes together in Computer Science). And, while he’s back in town (he currently lives and works at Digital Domain in California) he has been invited to give a few presentations.

this morning, Nafees gave a presentation at Academic Magnet, his aforementioned high school. At lunchtime he gave a presentation to the Charleston PMI chapter, of which I am a member (being a PMP). Then, later this afternoon, he gave a presentation at the auditorium at the College of Charleston. Busy schedule.

I attended the latter two presentations, and was impressed by his ability to cover interesting subject matter in different ways, targeted toward different people. There were some great videos from Digital Domain that I wish I could link too, here! Nafees is a good friend (and very smart) and it’s great to see how his hard work has paid off.

plus, he had a great slide of some pandas.

for my first post on this new blog, I thought I’d share a story!

so, here it is.   I guess it is sci-fi, but maybe not in a traditional sense.  I’ve got a lot of writing to do yet before I start trying to publish things, so I don’t mind sharing it here.  Feedback is welcomed!

this is also my first try at crossposting to my LiveJournal account, so let’s see how that goes.

otherwise, the family is great, it’s getting cooler outside (which is also great), and it’s almost time for lunch!

I haven’t posted in a while, so here is a brief Q&A, initiated by myself, to answer those questions that haven’t been asked!

where are you living? We’re back in Charleston, SC.

where are you working? At Blackbaud, as a program manager.

how’s the family? They are great! Callum is now 5, Mia is 3, and Lachlan is 1. More information about their antics can be found on Yvonne’s blog.

are you on Facebook? Yes, you can find my profile here.

have you been using Twitter? Yes, here (and on Identi.ca here).

have you been gaming? I am still playing some World of Warcraft, though not much… in fact, my main character has still not yet reached level 80!

then what have you been doing in your spare time, if not cranking those levels? I’ve been writing, and also creating music. And some studying.

what kind of music? The stuff I’m working on ranges from some more serious minimal techno to melodic club music with a purposefully high cheese factor.

can I hear some of your music? Yes, here is an example, though as a caveat I must mention that I still have a lot of work to do on the leveling and EQ. It sounds a bit muddy, and there’s too much sound bouncing back and forth.

so what’s the big news of today My sister is having a baby, right now!