| April 17, 1998 | Issue 13 | Orem, Utah |
In this issue:
How to Alienate Your Readers
In an amazing feat of stupidity, I decided to redo the graphic design of the website. It’s kind of fun when you’re just starting, though. Every font is another possibility – and I happen to have a lot of fonts. Then there is color – color for the logo, color for links in various states of activation, background colors and images, and on and on. And what graphics and gizmos can I add? At least I know that I like drop-shadows, so that part was pretty easy, unless you start to worry about drop-shadow opacity, blur and distance from the shadowed object. So it is fun to start, but usually ends up being a lot of tedious work.
Shannon said that it isn’t good to change layout very much, because it alienates your readers. Probably what alienates them more is not publishing anything new for a few months. I guess I’m going for it all.
Anyway, we’re back to life with plenty of new content to hopefully make it all worthwhile. After all, most people don’t care as much about the layout anyway.
I do want to mention a couple of things, though. First, I’ve used a “frameset” to create the menu to the left now. Notice that it doesn’t scroll with the stuff over here in this part of the screen. Frames can be nice, but they can also be annoying when you want to scroll using the keyboard. In short, if you’re trying to scroll and nothing happens, you probably need to click the mouse over on this part of the screen to get things working.
Also, a cool new feature I’ve added is the automatic e-mail notification when the site changes. This is provided by a third-party, so registering your e-mail address actually sends it to another site. The people that run that other site have a program that checks my site for changes, and sends e-mails to everyone registered when it detects any. I don’t have to do anything other than put the little entry field on my page. I thought it was neat, anyway.
So, do you like the new site better than the old? Don’t worry if you don’t, I’ll probably change it again in a couple of months anyway.
Shoot Ball!
I’m not sure how a seventeen-month-old gains a love of basketball. It certainly didn’t come from the first game he attended, even though it was an exciting over-time contest. He was just a few months old, and it was everything we could do to keep him from screaming in response to the loud noises.
His interest could have come from watching his dad play a couple of times. Probably, though, it really came on a relatively warm winter afternoon after I came home from work. I put on my ball cap, and we went outside to shoot some baskets on the hoop that Shannon had gotten me for Valentine’s Day a few weeks before. Even holding Ethan up as high as I could, he couldn’t come close to dropping the ball through the full-height rim. But fortunately, we had a couple of plastic planting pots that would support a basketball’s circumference, and he was happy to drop the ball into them. Provided, that is, that I took at least a couple of shots on the big rim while holding him under one arm.
The next few evenings, Ethan seemed very determined that I put on my ball cap when I got home from work. It was his way of saying that it was time to go out and shoot some baskets.
Those experiences were cemented by a day when we went across the street to the neighbor’s house. A couple of boys were playing “Around the World” on a lowered rim, and between their shots I would hold Ethan up so he could dunk a mini-basketball. After that, if we were ever in the front yard when someone was shooting over there, he would point at the player with not just the single-handed point of interest, but the double-handed point of idolization and awe. It was very hard to get him back in the house after that.
He also was hard to deter when the weather was bad, and even managed to enjoy “shooting” in spite of being pegged with a full-sized ball on an awkward rebound from a missed shot by dad, and a direct pelting from an air-ball by mom.
Ethan, by this time, had started saying, “shoot” a lot, and occasionally, “shoot ball”. Sometimes his pronunciation wasn’t too good, and a little vowel variation sounded like a stream of profanity coming from the back seat as we would drive down the road.
I finally decided that he needed his own hoop – not only to keep him on our side of the street, but to let him play when his parents didn’t feel like going outside. But I didn’t want one of those plastic toy hoops fit for cartoon character players, I wanted something that looked like a real standard – only smaller.
We found just the thing at a sporting goods store, and Ethan was throwing the ball through the hoop as soon as it was out of the box. That did make it somewhat difficult to assemble with him constantly shooting, but I eventually got the thing set up with a two-foot rim that’s just perfect for Ethan’s favorite dunk shot.
He was in heaven. He kept throwing the ball through the undersized rim, and I was pleased that my chosen set-up rewarded him with a completely authentic net swish on each shot.
It was hard to hold him down when he needed his pants changed, but when we were finished, I thought I would test him. As you might have read before, Ethan loves to throw things in the garbage. Especially the big garbage can out in the garage. So I offered him his dirty diaper and asked him if he wanted to throw it in the garbage.
I have to admit I was a tiny bit disappointed when he immediately came to get the diaper. Maybe he really was a garbage man at heart. But then he ran with the diaper back to the hoop and slam-dunked it.
Public Performances
I’ve been taking piano lessons for about a year and a half now. My teacher is a guy in our ward, Robert, who teaches in the evenings. A few months ago, Shannon asked him when there was going to be a recital. Shortly thereafter, Robert was assigning all his students a piece to perform, and the recital was scheduled.
We had it just a couple of weeks ago, and I was so tempted to announce to all the other students they could thank my wife for having to play in public.
It really wasn’t too big of a deal, though. There were only about six of us playing, and the audience was almost entirely parents. Shannon was my mom, complete with the video camera. Oh, and she pinned a daisy to my lapel as a boutonniere that everyone thought would squirt water when they saw it – it was April Fool’s Day after all.
I was at least twice the age of all the other performers, but at least I wasn’t old and outclassed. I played Reverie, by Peter Tchaikovsky. I found a MIDI version of it that you can listen to, but I like my interpretation better. If I could arrange to get my piano and computer closer together, I’d do my own recording.
I was nervous that playing the song had become so subconscious that I would get up there and blank out right in the middle, but I managed to play the whole song with only one mistake that I was aware of. There was a frightening time near the end where I couldn’t remember if I had already played a certain part, or if I was supposed to play it then. It is kind of like leading a hymn in church that has a chorus, and getting to the end of a verse, not remembering which verse you just sang. But I think I played it right. I’ll have to look at the video tape someday to be sure.
Easter at Ethan’s
It is the day after Easter. We had a very nice holiday. Our bishop postponed all pre-church meetings, which normally begin around 10 a.m., until 12:10. So we had plenty of time to hunt for baskets and even had a family breakfast.
I hid baskets for Ethan and Eric and they seemed to enjoy both the basket and the hunt. Ethan found his basket hidden under the piano and seemed to enjoy the jelly beans. He was a bit surprised that we were actually letting him eat candy along with breakfast.
After Ethan found his basket we said, “Help Daddy find his basket.” Ethan took Eric’s hand, like he knew exactly where he should look, and led him upstairs. We assumed Ethan planned to search upstairs for the Easter basket. Instead, Ethan led Eric directly to the basket ball hoop (already mentioned in this edition) in his room. Ethan gave up the search for Easter baskets and began shooting baskets.
Eventually we got both of the basketball lovers back downstairs and resumed the Easter basket hunt. In years past, Eric has often found his basket amazingly quickly. I sometimes think that when Eric appears to be having some deep philosophical thought, he’s really pondering good hiding places for Easter baskets. After not too much searching, he found his basket hidden in the kitchen.
Square Pizza
My boss asked me if I wanted to go to a conference about XML last month. I normally don’t get too excited about conferences, but this one was in Seattle, so I said I would go with an ulterior motive.
I took the chance to bring Shannon and Ethan with me so we could visit Kent and Phyllis and the kids. So while I spent the days in fascinating technical lectures, Shannon and Ethan had fun with the Wrathalls.
The last day of our stay was a highlight for me, because I didn’t have any meetings, and we got to go visit Kayla and Jared’s school. We had lunch with Kayla, and the cafeteria brought back memories of earlier years. I don’t remember it being quite so noisy though.
We picked a good day — the menu included pizza. Seeing the kids get their lunch, I noticed that the pizza looked like real pizza — you know, cooked on a round pan and everything, not like the square slabs of pizza-like stuff I was used to in school. But, as it turned out, it really was cooked on a square pan. The cook just had a clever cutting technique that made it look real. It tasted alright, too. It was also popcorn day, so I really did well.
I noticed that not many of the kids got the green beans or other side dishes. Come to think of it, those frivolous extras cut into recess time. So we were the last ones in the cafeteria after everyone else had run out to play.
Kayla took us on a tour of the school after lunch, and Ethan was a bundle of imminent destruction. There were just too many little crafts lying around.
Love,
Copyright � Eric Smith, 1989-1998, All rights reserved.