Trout Fishing

The kids were up at my parents for a few days. I went up Saturday and Dad took us fishing for brook trout. I love a good feed of brook trout. However, we didn't get a good feed of brook trout.

I think the first thing to remember is that when you go fishing you're really there to provide food for the black flies. That is your most important function.

The second thing to remember is that you're there to feed the fish. Of the two dozen worms you bring, 23 of them will be nibbled away by fish too small to get the hook.

The third thing to remember is that when your father catches the one fish of the trip, you won't allowed to eat it because your 8 year old daughter is with you. That means catch and release. That's not a bad thing, it just isn't very filling.

Regardless, all of the above will be forgotten (until your next blog post) because you'll get to see your daughter smiling through tears as the trout, just released, recovers from the shock and swims off for cover. Yes, he would have tasted good fried with some butter and pepper, but the daughter is happy and her concern for a living thing led to it's freedom.

Kidless...And the Present

I'm not exactly kidless. I had my neice and the child of a friend today and they were great company but I'm without MY kids. As much as I enjoy the occasional day away from them there's also the occasional day when they're not here and I really miss their company. I would really like to sing the alphabet with Harry or have a game of Horse-opoly with Catherine.

Since they're not here I guess it's safe to tell everyone what Catherine is getting for her birthday.

A Nintendo DS Lite!

I know, I know. We currently have a game system on each of our 3 TV's (as long as Gigapets counts as a game system) and another 4 or 5 in the basement plus the computers but we didn't have ONE handheld system. It really was a gaping hole in our geek family fabric. So we picked up a DS. I charged it last night, set it up and tried the game we got for Catherine, CATZ!

I admit I was gunning for a Gameboy Advance because the games were so much cheaper. The system itself is only $50 less but the games only average about $15 to $20 while the DS games are often closer to $40. But get this...The DS plays Gameboy Advance games! Whoo hoo!

And it is sooo neat! The pretty graphics, the duel screens, the stylus...The stylus!

It's going to be hers but I predict the husband and I will be begging her for some DS time.

Wondering about Linux

So SOMEBODY did a heavy propaganda number in my comments trying to swing me over to Linux. I have to admit, I've always wanted to run Linux. I have two live CD versions (Knoppix and Damn Small)that I stick in occasionally and a Unbuntu install CD but I've haven't yet made the jump.

What keeps stopping me is the fact that we use this computer for games as well as everything else. Everything else would be no issue on Linux, but the games? Are there Linux users out there that happily play Hearts of Iron 2 or Lego Star Wars? I really wouldn't want to be stuck with Bejeweled clones like some hapless Mac user.

This has actually stopped my planned reinstall because now I'm thinking about partitioning the drive and running Windows XP on one just for gaming and Linux on the other for everything else. Bit of a pain however when you want to go from browsing the internet to playing Knights of the Old Republic.

I want to make the leap but my inner gamer is scared.

Mouse Mummies

We actually did yard work yesterday. We'd needed to do it for awhile but kept putting it off until the grass was too high for our push mower and children started dissapearing in the new poplar growth. Yesterday though, for some reason we went out and worked and worked until all the balsam poplar babies were hacked away and our lawn was neatly cut.

We found some pretty neat stuff in the process.

Under an old garbage can lid were half a dozen snails. Several different types of awesome fungi were growing in a damp patch of lawn. Under a piece of cardboard was an ant colony. In the glove compartment of our lawn decoration ('92 Caravan) was a mouse nest. When I pulled the nest out to show the kids, the perfectly mummified corpse of a deer mouse tumbled out.

The perfect ending for the day for Catherine was when her friend from down the road took her over to his house to see the baby bird he'd found. It had been thrown from it's nest in a bit of a windstorm we'd had a few days earlier and he'd found it. I was a little worried but he's turned out to be a pretty responsible caretaker. He even went to the local wildlife park to pick up some seed the staff had reccomended for the bird. I hope he doesn't to try and keep it.

Thomas the Tank Engine Recall

$20 to $30 bucks a train and the makers of the Thomas wooden engines decided lead paint would be a GOOD idea. Visit here to see if you have any of the engines or sets affected by the recall.

On the bright side, if Harry grows up to be a career criminal or have an IQ of 55, I can point to the Thomas trains and say, "Not my fault!"

Still haven't wiped my hard drive. I've backed up everything, exported and saved all important stuff from the browsers and OE and I am ready. But my husband isn't. He keeps worrying over all the work the reinstalling will be.

The reinstalling I will do.

Frankly, internet problems aside we're working with an 18 month old XP install and I'm a firm believer that a fresh install every once in awhile is a good thing. Especially now that I've done all the frigging work. My only regret is that I'll be reinstalling from my Compaq's recovery partition and that holds all kinds of steaming Compaq crap that will then have to be weeded out and stomped to death. My Queendom for XP install CDs!

Anyhow, enough of the whining.

We've sort of left off school for the summer now. I want to do a few drills once a week to keep what Catherine's learned fresh but we'll see how that goes. She's in a frantic race to finish the freeplay mode in Lego Star Wars II before her father does and I understand that's quite a bit more important then math drills at the moment.

Slow Posting

I am trying to post, honest. I've been having horrible internet speed problems and I'm wiping my hard drive this week to deal with them. Hopefully. Nothing else seems to work for any length of time and despite virus and spyware scans that show nothing I'm getting paranoid.

I hope to be back up to normal posting speed by the end of this week.

School for Thought?

I'm just wondering if anyone knows what happened to School of Thought and Evolved Homeschooling. Two of my favourite blogs and one of my favourite bloggers. I'm hoping it's just a pleasant break or happy change.

I'm Recruiting for the Dark Side

Click here. Just do it. Trust me.

Didn't work for me, I'm still who I am but I certainly appreciate the wit behind it. Check out the related blog for comments, especially the ones who sadly lack a sense of humour.