2011 weekly posting challenge…

So, in a nutshell, I’ve been pretty poor at maintaining my blog lately and I’ve decided this simply will not do. So, *copies pre-written challenge snippet and pastes into blog entry as own* “Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now.  I will be posting on this blog once a day / once a week for all of 2011.”

“I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful” but there’s a decent chance it’ll be plain and boring — I know, right some inspirin’, eh. “Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can.”

If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way” e-slap me if I don’t follow through on this.

Seriously, one post a week… how hard can it be?

 

[steelie]

when cutting boards attack…

Every once in a while life throws you one of those crazy little “could have been a lot worse” curve-balls that make you feel shamefully careless and incredibly stupid.

A few Sundays ago, I had just returned home from driving my wife in to work and I was trying to quickly prepare lunch for the three of us before heading back out for the day’s errands. I couldn’t get the food together quick enough for the boys. They were starving and tired of me kicking them out of the kitchen. I asked them to go play with their LEGOS or something so I could actually finished the meal. Alas they are boys so, instead of playing quietly they decided to do laps around the inside of our house. We have one of those houses where you can do a full loop around our main level from the kitchen, to the dining room, to the living room, through the hallway and back into the kitchen again. And the boys were running circuits.

I had our wooden ½” cutting board out on the end of our counter right next to where a short hallways leads from the kitchen back into the boys’ playroom — we usually leave out on the counter because we use it for almost every meal. I also had out a couple of sharp knives on it that I was using to chop some vegetables, working away as quickly as I could.

The boys got bored of just plain-ol’ running around so they started to do this interesting looking chariot racing, er… thing. My 6-year-old, “L”, was still running around the loop only now, he was leaning forward with his arms back pulling his younger brother, “X”, by the hands so that he slid along behind. It was pretty cool to watch, actually.

I kept chopping and prepping and repeatedly asking the boys to not run through the kitchen while I made their lunch.

Finally, they stopped running. Not because they were bored charioteering around the house nor because I had finished their lunches. It was because that frightening “could have been a lot worse” thing happened. One of those things that you see play out in slow motion but happens far too fast to be able to do anything about it.

“L” was trying to get “X” to go faster and faster, and for that he had lean further and further forward. Well, the faster forward he ran the furtherback “X” had to lean as not to be puller over. Unfortunately, as the two of them ran/slid through the kitchen for the billionth time, “L” was leaning too far forward which prompted “X” to lean back even further, right as they were passing by the end of our counter… right next to where a short hallways leads from the kitchen back into the boys’ playroom… right where we always keep the cutting board… right where I just finished chopping some vegetables.

“X” leaned back far enough that he stalled his older brother’s running and they both fell over backwards. “L” instinctively let go of “X” hands in the hopes of breaking his own fall, unfortunately, this left “X” to fall back onto the kitchen tiles and crack his head, with his older brother still falling back on top of him. “L” reached out his left hand to grab hold of the edge of the counter but instead grabbed onto the cutting board pulling it off. He then buckled back and landed on “X’s” right arm and leg with the wooden ½” cutting board hitting “X” edge-first, square in the centre of his chest.

 

“X’s” wail was instantaneous. I (lovingly) hauled “L” off his little brother and scooped him up. It took me a long time to calm him down but once I finally did he let me check him over thoroughly and, unbelievably, there wasn’t a single bump or mark on him.

Of course now, we don’t leave the cutting board out anymore but when we do use it, we do so in the middle of the main counter, away from of the traffic lane.

What freaked me out the most (and still does to a degree) is that I don’t remember removing the knives from the board before it happened. I left them there the entire time I was cutting the veggies and must have subconsciously moved them a few seconds before the crash.

*Eesh* I just shivered writing that.

I can’t imagine…

[steelie]

Just downloaded the posterous iPhone…

Seems interesting enough so far. Especially since the WordPress app has been broken for the past two upgrades.

The one thing I wish it allowed was multiple accounts — not multiple blogs on a single account, multiple accounts each the with option for multiple blogs. The WordPress app already has this feature which make it even more of a drag that the latest version of their app won’t even open.

All that being said, I’ve still been trying to figure out where Posterous fits in for me. When I was still using VOX.com, and on the rare occasion I would actually post something, I was using Posterous to crosspost to there and WP. Now I’m not entirely sure.

In the mean time I’ll just keep playing with it with hopes it’ll show me. ?

[steelie]

Wondering if I can manage to read… ONE BOOK PER MONTH!

ONE PER MONTH, you say? Pretty pathetic, I know. Truth is, I’ve never been much of a reader and I’ve only recently started to really enjoy it.

It’s a bit difficult “getting into it” so late because I’m an almost embarrassingly slow reader or, at least, not nearly as quick as I’d like to be. So, I think the goal of one book per month is a reasonable, and not entirely laughable, benchmark for my new hobby. Ideally, I’d like to read at least one chapter per night which should, by all accounts, get me through more than one book every month. Alas, I have too many thing I want to do and/or keep putting off so I’m trying to schedule it all in… somehow.

Now, I just need a place to track books read and find new recommendations.

:^)

[steelie]

VOX.com is closing on September 30, 2010

While I’m a bit saddened by this news — more for nostalgia’s sake than anything else — I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised by it. There were many things I loved about VOX: the community, the themes, the ease of use, the ability to explore and the online “Neighbours” I met and still keep in touch with.

That being said, the community aspect was nice but exclusive to VOX. There were a number of times my brother wanted to comment on I post I had written — posts were available for all to read unless otherwise specified — but he would have had to sign up for an account, in which he had no interest. And I don’t blame him.

After a while VOX.com just felt very closed off and I stopped posting. I always meant to go back but every time I logged back in I’d read my neighbours posts but rarely comment or do much anything else — it just didn’t feel like a blogging home base anymore.

Sorry, neighbours. I should have commented more. Please post where you plan to moving your blogs. I’ll add them to my RRS feed.

For what it’s worth, there are instructions on how to move your blog over to a free TypePad account. However, the company SixApart has already gotten rid of Livejournal and now VOX… makes you think.

I’m over at www.steelie.net (WordPress.com) for any of you that want to step by and say hi. Oh, and by the way, WordPress.com imports VOX accounts beautifully, as does Posterous.com.

Take care y’all.

[steelie]

“C’you pick me up?”

When I got out of the shower this morning, my older son, “Big-L”, was sitting on the bathroom floor still playing on his iPod Touch — he had woken up quite [too] early this morning. From there I had to go into my room to get some clothes for the day and my younger son, “Lil-X”, was sitting cross-legged on my bed next to his mother who, I could tell, had barely slept a wink.

“Hey, little guy. Did you have a good sleep?”

“Yeah,” he replied sleepily. “C’you pick me up?”

“Oh, just a sec, kiddo. I have to get dressed first, Ok?”

“Ok.”

When I was done I went over and sat down next to him on the bed. “You still sleepy, buddy?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

“Lil-X” reached his open hand towards my face but he couldn’t quite reach it so, his perfect little fingers motioned for me to lean in. And when I did, he placed his hand on the nape of my neck and pulled me even closer. Close enough that I could feel the breath from his little nose on my face. He then proceeded to study my eyes with such curious intensity it felt like he was peering directly into my soul. I remember hoping he could tell how much I loved him. Those few seconds felt like an absolute gift that will last forever.

Finally, he said, “They don’t look red to me.”

“What, my eyes?”

“Yeah.” Implying that I didn’t look tired.

“Well, they feel pretty red this morning, handsome.”

“Oh. C’you pick me up?”

“You bet, kiddo.”

*Sigh*

I love those boys. ?

[steelie]

so far posterous kinda sucks…

Well, I’ve been reading here and there about Posterous.com being super-effing-unbelievable-interconnected-import-your-old-blog-tweet-wordpress-killer-o-riffic. I was hoping my fist post here would be just as “o-riffic” as all that but so far, I have to say, I am a fair shade of unimpressed. I could be wrong, but for me the first natural step to migrating my blog from one platform to another would be the actual migrating.

The import feature has failed on me four times in a row. Nice, eh? It’s supposed to bring over all posts, pages and comments from another blog.

Part of me thinks I should just give up on Posterous but I’ve come to realize that I’m a glutton for punishment — I’m importing again as I write this.

C’mon Posterous, prove me wrong. Make this o-riffic for me too.

 

[steelie]