The Duke
WordPress Development Blog : WordPress 2
WordPress 2.0 is out! Time to get cracking on those updates.
(I’ll probably only upgrade this blog and Tolen Mar, because they have the highest traffic.)
Happy Birthday, Naomi!
You are two months old today! My, how you’ve grown!
Sleep-Induced Beardlessness
Man, I’ve got to get more and better sleep at night – not only am I misplacing my keys, pens, Ben’s toys or forgetting where I put the groceries, but this morning, I didn’t pay attention to the setting on my beard trimmer and ended up having to shave my face.
At least Naomi still recognizes me (perhaps as Uncle Scott, but still…). The first time I shaved my beard off after Ben was born, he wouldn’t look at me, but he’d smile a bespectacled tall bearded men he’s see on the street.
Memo the Driver of the Gray Car Ahead of Us on Hwy 10E Yesterday Morning
Take the time to clean off your car before heading out on the road. The chunk of ice that flew off your roof cracked my windshield and broke a wiper blade.
Suggestion Box
Since writing my post about about my goals for 2006, I’ve been thinking about throwing the question to my readership:
What do you think I should do in 2006?
Do you have any books to recommend, TV shows to watch, DVDs to rent, magazines to try, Web sites to browse, comics to read, games to play, or something similar? Leave your suggestions in the comments, and perhaps I’ll give them a try.
Looking Ahead to 2006
I’m not calling them resolutions, but here are some of my goals for 2006:
- Read two books from my reading list a month.
- Learn to drive standard.
- Make my own spaghetti sauce all year long.
- Play at least one of my unplayed boardgames every two months.
- Clean out and sort the hardware and painting supplies in the basement.
- Post something to my blog at least once a day (I missed four days in March, 2005 – my best streak yet.).
I think that’s a practical list of things to do over the next year, in addition to my regular fun as husband, father, worker, reader, player, etc.
Do you have any goals or resolutions for the new year? Care to share?
Annual Blog Update
There’s something about the New Year that makes me want to update and reformat my blogs. Perhaps it’s the fact that I update the copyright dates on all six of my blog installations. Perhaps it’s the fact that v2.0 of WordPress is due to be released soon.
Anyway, this is what I have in mind for 2006:
- Convert HappyCouple into a static site for our wedding photos. The group blog idea never worked out.
- Add a “Recent Posts” section.
- Find a plugin to organize my monthly archives list that won’t screw up my SQL database.
- Add a “Snapshot” section to my blog listing what I’m reading, watching, etc.
- Clean out my blogrolls.
- Add more meaningful categories to the posts in Babycakes and Pumpkin.
Christmas Holiday Roundup: Bullet-Point Edition
So many events over the past week, so little time to write about them!
Tuesday
- Visited Maggie & Andrew’s place for tea, cookies and gift exchange.
- Ben was fascinated by Andrew’s Funhouse pinball machine, and spent half an hour walking around the front of the machine, poking the flipper buttons, pulling the plungers and looking for spare change in the coin slot.
Wednesday
- Ben and I visited Ben’s favourite babysitter, Pat, at her apartment.
- Pat was delighted to see her little guy.
- Ben enjoyed chasing her chubby orange cat, Max.
- I swear, that cat is a football with legs – the kind of comically enormous cat that gets photographed for postcards.
Thursday
- Jon comes by for dinner and a Christmas/Birthday visit.
- Jon loved his IKEA dragon, which Ben thought belonged to him.
- Eventually, they both played with their own dragons.
Friday
- I went to work for a half-day.
- Not much work got done, but there were tasty pastries and glasses of eggnog for everyone.
- I arrived home at the same time as Scott arrived for the weekend
- We took Ben across the street to play in the snow and build snowmen while Dina took Naomi out for extra-last-minute Christmas shopping
- Scott helped me lug some boxes from the dining room to the basement, and to haul the boxes of Christmas decorations from the basement to the dining room.
Christmas Eve
- I went shopping for last minute dinner supplies, and was surprised to see the store packed with like-minded customers at nine a.m.
- Dina’s parent’s arrived for the weekend just before lunch.
- Scott took Ben back outside for more snowman construction while the rest of us started putting up the tree.
- Ben started clapping as soon as he saw the lights on the tree, and then started playing with the different decorations.
- Ben also started saying “Ho Ho Ho” whenever he saw a Santa figure.
- After dinner, I gave Ben, Naomi and the turkey their baths. Only the turkey didn’t require any soap or shampoo.
- We all watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas together, and Ben danced during the Who choruses. Very cute.
- After the kids went to bed, Scott and I put the gifts under the tree while Dina and her parents filled the stockings.
- Dina has made stockings for both the kids. I’m still using the stocking I had as a kid.
Christmas
- Everyone gathered around the tree in the morning, and watched Ben poking the packages under the tree.
- Everyone opened their gifts in an orderly flurry of paper, bows and ribbons. We all counted ourselves lucky and blessed.
- Im other words, a good haul! [grin]
- Naomi was sleeping, so we left her gifts for later that day.
- I cooked up a pancake brunch using my new Cuisinart combination griddle/grill/sandwich press. I’ll never go back to the frying pan.
- After lunch, we gathered round to open Naomi’s gifts. She’s has many new cute outfits, books, and rattles.
- Ben made sure to test all of Naomi’s toys, like a good brother should.
- I popped the turkey in the oven and prepped the vegetables for all the side dishes that were going to cook while the turkey rested on the carving board.
- Bill and Cecil arrived for dinner, bearing gifts and what turned out to be a sumptuous chocolate cake for dessert.
- My third turkey dinner turned out better than my first two. Practice is making perfect.
- After dinner, the tryptophan hit, and we all just collapsed on available living room furniture.
Boxing Day
- Scott and I headed over to my local game store for their Boxing Day sale: 50% off everything in the store, except the odd CCG and hockey single.
- If I’d had time to play more games over the past year, or thought that I would be playing more in 2006, I’d have picked up more board games – particularly the big-ticket items from Fantasy Flight Games.
- As it stood, I rounded out my collection with items I’d had my eye on for the last few months, like new Anachronism packs, and the two-player Lord of the Rings game by Reiner Knizia. Hooray!
- After lunch, Dina, Scott and I hit gridlock in the mall parking lot as we tried to figure out where we were going.
- The sales at the Best Buy and Future Shop were nothing to write home about. We had a better shopping excursion last year.
- We did pick up some specific items we were looking for, but the prices were no better than they would have been next week.
- Dina have officially run out of shelf space for our DVD collection. Time for an expansion.
- For dinner, I grilled hamburgers on the grill plates of my press. I’ll have to change the recipe for the burgers somewhat to account for the fried food texture.
- After dinner, we watched the Doctor Who Christmas Invasion featuring David Tennant as the new Doctor.
- It looks like the upcoming series of Doctor Who will be as entertaining as the Chrisopher Eccleston edition
Tuesday
- Everybody left after lunch: first Dina’s folks, and then Scott.
- I started playing Shadow of the Colossus, and I’m still trying to figure out how to use the magic compass. The horse animations are brilliant, though.
- Pat came by to meet Naomi for the first time. We had a great afternoon visit.
- After dinner, Francois and his family also came over to meet Naomi. His daughters took turns holding our daughter.
- Ben kept everyone entertained by playing with wrapped pieces of candy. At least he didn’t figure out how to unwrap those pieces.
- While we tried to get Naomi to settle for the night, Dina and I started watching the second season of Scrubs.
So that was our holiday. I’m glad I have this week off work so I can catch up on all the post-holiday housework…and maybe take a nap before New Year’s Eve.
Christmas Photos
Click the stockings to open the photo gallery. Enjoy!
Chicken Milk With Nutmeg
One of my favourite Christmas quirks is the fact that egg nog is called lait de poule in French.