avocado8 http://www.avocado8.com/blog/ regaling the web with tales of whoa Copyright 2011 Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:46:26 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Taking It One Step Too Far Me: "This look OK?"

Beaner: "Yeah. You look good. You look beautiful."

Me: "OK, thanks buddy. :-)"

Beaner: "You look better than I ever saw you before."

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/12/taking_it_one_step_too_far.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/12/taking_it_one_step_too_far.html Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:46:26 -0500 Documentation of a Life A friend happened to favorite a Flickr photo of mine from 2007 today, which led me to re-read the caption on the photo, which led me to look at the other photos in my stream from around that time, which led me to the photos of our trip to Pittsburgh just after Christmas in 2007. Al asked, "what was the name of the pizza place we went to with Craig, do you remember?" I didn't, but I said that I bet I'd blogged about it.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/12/documentation_of_a_life.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/12/documentation_of_a_life.html me, me, me Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:18:39 -0500 Eating By Color The Beaner has always had a healthy appetite, and from about 6 months on ate a wide variety of foods. He's still fond of fruit and avocado sushi rolls, but lately his plates have seemed somewhat monochromatic—with heavy emphasis on macaroni & cheese and white rice.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/10/eating_by_color.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/10/eating_by_color.html parenthood Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:50:33 -0500 Family Photo We made a couple friends while waiting in line to register the Beaner for first grade, and the son of two of those new friends ended up in the Beaner's class. They're super nice; can't wait to have them over for a weekend dinner or invite them to go apple picking or something similarly family-oriented (they also have a daughter).

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/09/family_photo.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/09/family_photo.html school Mon, 12 Sep 2011 22:45:54 -0500 First Grade Update The first week of first grade went off with only one hitch (a mixup having to do with who would be picking the Beaner up after school) that was sorted fairly quickly by Shawna. The morning drop-offs went smoothly even though the weather sucked most days; on Friday, when I asked the Beaner if he wanted me to wait with him until he lined up with his class or leave right away, he replied, "either way. You can go if you want."

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/09/first_grade_update.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/09/first_grade_update.html parenthood Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:40:11 -0500 First Day of First Grade So... Long story short (for those of you for whom the sight of a semicolon evokes TL;DR, this first sentence probably tells you all you need to know, and you can stop after it), after a year of stress and a night of braving the elements, we got the Beaner into our neighborhood public school, and he started first grade today. Weirdly, my stress level did not go down after we were told he was in—nor did it drop when we got confirmation by mail in the form of a teacher and classroom assignment a couple days later. Instead, it seemed to hover over my shoulders and chest like a lead x-ray apron.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/09/first_day_of_first_grade.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/09/first_day_of_first_grade.html parenthood Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:50:57 -0500 Moody XI Just because I feel like it, I'm going to record the current state of my Moody playlist, which I've mentioned before (when it was Moody II, and again when it was Moody VI). It's now Moody XI, and it contains the same core favorites with a few newer additions. I should really figure out how to share this on last.fm or blip or something, so you can listen to it the way I do: while coding, and on loop.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/08/moody_xi.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/08/moody_xi.html music Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:43:50 -0500 I Almost Tweeted This It's been so long since I've written in either of my blogs that I was afraid to even open them for fear they'd been hacked by spammers and were crawling with malware. Tonight I finally got the nerve to take a peek, and found no such thing. Instead, I got caught up in reading old hockey blog posts for a good 30 minutes before coming over here to see what was up.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/07/i_almost_tweeted_this_1.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2011/07/i_almost_tweeted_this_1.html me, me, me Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:47:56 -0500 My Kid is a Kindergartner I sat down to write a post about why one of the UX people on my team is also the best tester, but when I opened my "temp" file (the one I use to write posts in offline, so I don't have to type into a Movable Type form, and so I don't accidentally lose everything I've written if there's a connection problem), it contained a post I wrote back in December of last year about what the Beaner was like at age five, which I ended up re-reading. As I mentioned in that post, I often regret these days that I don't write here as often as I used to, and that as a result I'll end up forgetting what different stages of the Beaner's childhood were like. So now I'll blow my blogwad on a post about the Beaner, and you'll probably never find out why I think that UX person is such a great tester.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/09/my_kid_is_a_kindergartner.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/09/my_kid_is_a_kindergartner.html parenthood Sun, 12 Sep 2010 00:05:17 -0500 Mmmmm, Peachy I've been enjoying this breakfast smoothie so much (and so often) lately that I thought I'd share it with everyone while it's still peach season.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/08/mmmmm_peachy.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/08/mmmmm_peachy.html food Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:12:02 -0500 iWhat? At dinner tonight, the Beaner says, "You know, Apple's making a lot of 'i' products now."

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/05/iwhat.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/05/iwhat.html parenthood Tue, 18 May 2010 23:39:34 -0500 Quiet as A... Due to a schedule change with our nanny, Al and I are now responsible for picking the Beaner up from school on the days when he gets out at noon. We split duties, each taking a different day.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/04/quiet_as_a.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/04/quiet_as_a.html parenthood Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:55:41 -0500 Agile in Action Recently I started a new Flickr set called Scrum in Practice, and I've been using it to collect photos of my team (and others at CIM) practicing, as the name suggests, Scrum.

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/03/agile_in_action.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/03/agile_in_action.html work Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:54:11 -0500 Invalidity Tonight Al asked me to order something online for him from Brookstone. I found the site relatively easy to navigate, and I even successfully found something extra we needed to get up to the $100 minimum for free shipping. Then this happened:

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/03/invalidity.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/03/invalidity.html me, me, me Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:46:51 -0500 The Moral of the Story At breakfast the other morning, the Beaner held up a book with an orange cover (yes, we allow books and magazines at the table, though I sweep them away if I notice he's not eating) and announced, "Mom, it just occurred to me what Green Eggs and Ham is about."

]]> http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_moral_of_the_story.html http://www.avocado8.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_moral_of_the_story.html parenthood Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:18:52 -0500